HANDLING ALIENATION USING BETTER COMMUNICATION AND SELF CARE

HANDLING ALIENATION USING BETTER COMMUNICATION AND SELF CARE FALL VIRTUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Saturday September 10, 2022

William Bernet M.D.
“New Research Helps us Understand how Alienated Children Think and Behave"

Mary Alvarez, Ph. D
“The Importance of Self-Care for Alienated Parents and Grandparents”

Mark Mosk, Ph. D
“Talking Heads: From Chatter to Connectons”

Megan Hunter, MBA
“Calm B4Think: Adapting Communication to Achieve Peace”

Sunday September 11, 2022

Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD
. “Overcoming the Contagious Emotions of Alienation”

Sue Cornbluth, Psy
“Your Compassion Journey to Healing: Mastering the Skills to Reduce Your Stress in Alienation Situations”

Joshua Coleman, Ph. D
“Five Most Common Mistakes of Alienated and Estranged Parents and How to Heal Them”

Lisa Rothfus, LCSW, MSW, BED, BA
“Families Stuck in the Past: Moving them Forward Into a Future Focused Reunification Process”

ELAINE COBB, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, FAMILY ACCESS-FIGHTING FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS, EVENT DIRECTOR

COLLEEN MURRAY, PH. D, LPC, NCC, MODERATOR

PRESENTERS

BILL EDDY, LCSW, JD.

"Overcoming the Contagious Emotions of Alienation"

Alienation is significantly driven by repeated over-exposure of a child to a parent’s intense and unmanaged emotions. This presentation will address some of the brain dynamics associated with contagious emotions and some of the personalities associated with insufficient emotional boundaries. Then there will be an explanation of how teaching self-management skills to parents and children can help them overcome or reduce alienation by learning skills for appropriately managed emotions with the New Ways for Families skills training method. The talk will include video clips of parents being taught these skills.

Bill Eddy is a family therapist, educational consultant, and family mediator. As an attorney and a therapist, he is internationally known and in high demand for his expertise in dealing with high conflict personalities, giving seminars to organizations about personality disorders all over the world.

Bill is the lead author of Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone With Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Randi Kreger, and also the author of Don’t Alienate the Kids: Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce.

Eddy is the Training Director for High Conflict Institute and speaks around the world to lawyers, judges, therapists and others on dealing with high conflict personalities in legal disputes. He developed the New Ways for Families® method for managing high conflict separations and divorces in family courts with parent training in basic conflict resolution skills that reduce alienation and other extreme behavior. He has handled approximately 50 family court cases involving alienation as a lawyer or high conflict consultant. www.HighConflictInstitute.com.

WILLIAM BERNET, M. D.

"New Research Helps Us Understand How Alienated Children Think and Behave"
Dr. Bernet will describe several recent research projects involving alienated children. These studies help us understand why alienated children behave the way they do. There are implications for communicating with alienated children as well as for treatment programs.

William Bernet, M.D., a graduate of Holy Cross College, summa cum laude, and Harvard Medical School, is a professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is board certified in general psychiatry, child psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. As an expert in forensic psychiatry, Dr. Bernet has testified about 300 times in 24 states. Dr. Bernet has written professional articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects, including: group and individual therapy with children and adolescents; humor in psychotherapy; forensic child psychiatry; child maltreatment; true and false allegations of abuse; satanic ritual abuse; reincarnation; child custody and visitation; parental alienation; testimony regarding behavioral genomics; and risk management. In 2007, Dr. Bernet and Judge Don R. Ash published Children of Divorce: A Practical Guide for Parents, Therapists, Attorneys, and Judges. Dr. Bernet edited Parental Alienation, DSM-5, and ICD-11, which was published in 2010. Dr. Bernet and his colleagues edited Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals, which was published in 2013. He was the founder and first president of the Parental Alienation Study Group.

SUE CORNBLUTH, PSY.

"Your Compassion Journey to Healing: Mastering the Skills to Reduce your Stress in Alienation Situations"

Did you know that it is IMPOSSIBLE to repair a relationship without increasing your self-awareness? Self-awareness is critical to recognizing and dismantling defensiveness so that you can show up in the relationship differently. If you have been alienated from your child, your inner self is the first relationship in need of your attention and repair. Healing the wounds of your trauma FIRST enables you to reconnect with yourself, and create the necessary space for a new relationship to evolve with your alienated child.

In this presentation, you will learn (1) hands-on techniques to reduce your stress level (3) self-soothing techniques to reduce panic and fear, (3) how self-compassion leads to increased resilience to cope with stressful situations , and (4) Kristen Neff's concept of R.A.I.N. which guides us to find our inner compassionate voice.

As you learn how to use these simple techniques to dismantle emotional charges, you will begin to experience the healing and freedom that becomes possible when we contact the vulnerability within ourselves and others, to show up with a loving heart.

Dr. Sue Cornbluth is a certified parenting expert, coach and thought leader with international recognition, specializing in high conflict divorce and parental/grandparent alienation situations.
In 2013 Dr. Sue established Dr. Sue & You LLC, a consulting & coaching firm working with parents to help them successfully move through their high conflict divorce situations and reunite with their children. She has reunited hundreds of families with her tools and techniques. Her passion and goal is to heal family conflict with compassion. She accomplishes this through her work educating and guiding parents and professionals.

Dr. Sue currently hosts a weekly radio broadcast in Philadelphia called “The Dr. Sue Show: Beyond Divorce: We Cure Conflict” on 860AM-Talk Radio. She also is the host of the television show “Dr. Sue and You” on Roku. Both shows educate the public about how you can become the solution to any conflict in your life.

Dr. Sue has served as a child abuse and victims’ rights expert. The exposure she gained as a lead expert during the Jerry Sandusky trial directly contributed to the growing demand for her expert opinion. She has gained global recognition and is contracted for speaking engagements around the world. The Women’s Distinctive Business Magazine recognized Dr. Sue as One of the Country’s Most Distinctive Women. She is a regular contributor as a mental health expert for network television stations including NBC, Fox and CBS. She has contributed to several national publications.

Dr. Sue resides in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children. She holds a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and has worked as a Psychology Professor at Temple University.

MARY ALVAREZ, PH. D

"The Importance of Self-Care for
Alienated Parents and
Grandparents"

When a parent's relationship with a child is interrupted, damaged, and/or lost, it is psychologically devastating to that parent. As the focus for alienated parents becomes making sense of how this happened and what they can do to regain and repair the relationship with their child, their self-care often wanes or disappears altogether. This presentation will discuss not only the importance of self-care as part of the process to repair or regain a parent-child relationship, but some basic, but powerful, self-care strategies.

Mary Alvarez, PhD earned her doctorate in developmental psychology with an emphasis in cognitive development and neurodevelopment from the University of Houston. Dr. Alvarez, a licensed psychologist for twenty-five years in Texas, has both a forensic and a clinical practice and she specializes in evaluating and treating high conflict families. As a result of her forensic work in family law as a custody evaluator, Dr. Alvarez has evaluated and witnessed the devastating psychological effects on children whose parents are involved in chronic high conflict, including parental alienation. Dr. Alvarez recognized the need to focus on prevention and early intervention of parental alienation, so she codeveloped Resetting the Family to evaluate and intervene with high conflict parents and families that include mild and moderate parental alienation as part of the conflict.

MEGAN HUNTER, MBA

CalmB4Think™: Adapting Communication to Achieve Peace"
Interactions with intensely challenging people, including those who communicate in a high conflict manner, are the most likely to derail progress, damage relationships, and cause family breakdowns. These interactions cause high levels of stress for everyone and are the result of four core high-conflict characteristics:
1. unmanaged emotions
2. all-or-nothing thinking
3. extreme behaviors
4. instant blaming.

Unfortunately, those with these communication characteristics do not know their behaviors are working against them. There is a way to improve interactions with people with high conflict communication but it’s opposite of what we know to do and are used to doing, or what we feel like doing.

This entertaining and educational keynote/workshop by author and high conflict expert, Megan Hunter, MBA, CEO and co-founder of the High Conflict Institute, unveils the driving force (the complicated operating system) behind their behaviors and how to take opposite actions, including the CalmB4Think™ Conflict Communication method: Dilemmas & Decisions; EAR Statements (Empathy, Attention, Respect); BIFF Response®; and Setting Limits. The training starts with a cursory understanding of the neuroscience of high conflict communication—to increase our empathy and ability to manage interactions by increasing safety.

Megan Hunter is co-founder and chief executive officer of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. She is a leading expert in high conflict personalities, focusing primarily on family law, mediation, workplace disputes, customer service, government/public service, ombuds, universities, and religious organizations. Her background in business and economics, combined with years of experience in the legal arena, give her unique and valuable insights across diverse conflict settings.
Megan has served as a family law and child support specialist at the Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts, and a child support enforcement manager in Nebraska. She has served as president and other leadership roles in non-profit organizations including the Association of Family & Conciliation Courts Arizona Chapter, the Arizona Family Support Council, Nebraska Child Support Enforcement Association, and others. She was appointed by the Arizona governor to a five-year term on the Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners.
She has given keynote addresses, workshops, and seminars in seven countries and has authored or co-authored five books on high conflict issues.

JOSHUA COLEMAN, PH. D

"Five Most Common Mistakes of Alienated and Estranged Parents
And How to Heal Them"

Parents who have been cut off by their children experience enormous pain and confusion. Sadly, those emotions often cause parents to communicate or behave in ways that hurt their ability to move the relationship with their children toward reconciliation.
In this talk, I will review the 5 most common mistakes and the best way for parents to heal them if they have occurred.

Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families.

He has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC THINK, The Behavioral Scientist, CNN, MarketWatch, the San Francisco Chronicle, Greater Good Magazine, AEON, Huffington Post,
Psychology Today, and more. He has given talks to the faculties at Harvard, the Well Cornell Department of Psychiatry and other academic institutions. A frequent guest on the Today Show and NPR, he has been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, PBS, America Online Coaches, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television.

He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The Rules of Estrangement (Random House); The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin's Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin's Press); When Parents Hurt; Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along( Harper Collins).

He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz, of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.

His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, and Croatian.

He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.

Dr Coleman also writes music for film and television. His music has been featured on Lethal Weapon, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Longmire, Shameless, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Fresh Off the Boat, Supergirl, Mistresses, Hustlers, RuPaul's Drag Race and many more.

LISA ROTHFUS, LCSW, MSW, BEd, BA

"Families Stuck in the Past: Moving Them Forward Into a Future Focused Reunification Process"
Individuals and families going through a reunification process often find themselves stuck in the scenarios and memories of past trauma, or in the sadness of their current situation. Many times, the therapeutic process focus more on exploring the negative interactions between family members, rather than focusing on how to help the family move forward into more positive experiences. When is it helpful in the reunification process to understand past events and explore current family behaviors, and when is it more beneficial to help them refocus on their future together? This presentation will offer the kind of common scenarios experienced by alienated parents and families going through reunification, and discuss strategies for moving beyond limiting mindsets. We will explore the neuroscience behind positive and negative emotions, and the importance of incorporating gratitude and appreciation into the healing process. In addition this presentation will offer suggestions for how to help our clients remain future focused in their personal lives, and in our own clinical practice with families.

Lisa Rothfus is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has worked with families in private practice for over 35 years. She earned her Master’s degree in Social Work from Simmons School of Social Work in Massachusetts, interned at two Harvard teaching hospitals, and did post master's training in Structural Family Therapy at Cambridge Family Institute. She specializes in counseling families transitioning through all stages of divorce and high conflict family situations. Her practice assesses and treats families affected by Parental Alienation, and offers mild, moderate, and severe Reunification Therapy. She is often appointed by the court to assess and provide counseling for families experiencing alienation or estrangement issues In addition, she has worked as a Guardian Ad Litem, Mediator and Parent Facilitator/Coordinator.

MARK MOSK, PH. D

"Talking Heads: From Chatter to Connections"

Human beings are by definition social creatures and so it is remarkable that our ability to communicate effectively and connect with others of our own species can be so wanting. Since these aptitudes are not built in as a part of our biological makeup, they must be learned, practiced, and refined throughout our lifetimes. Successful interpersonal communication encompasses a complex set of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral elements. I will present a sociocultural-behavioral-psychological model that describes how and why we interact, and specific skills-building techniques used in coaching and psychotherapy to enhance one’s capacity to exchange information and bond with others. This need is especially acute for individuals who find themselves in high conflict situations, such as those experiencing parental alienation. I will share specific, real-life scenarios of such conflict from my own clinical cases, and a comprehensive overview of basic and advanced proficiencies needed to exchange ideas and messages effectively, to build relationships in a meaningful way, and to enhance one's emotional well-being and functioning.

Dr. Mosk completed his doctorate in clinical psychology at Western University in London, Canada in 1982. Dr. Mosk began his career as a clinical and research psychologist at the UCLA School of Medicine, after which he developed and directed The Life Skills Center, a model treatment program for patients with serious mental illness for the California Department of Mental Health’s psychiatric hospital system. Since that time, Dr. Mosk has been providing customized professional services to help and guide individuals undergoing transitional periods in their lives, organizations experiencing significant changes, and parties involved in lawsuits.
As a highly trained clinician, Dr. Mosk has treated thousands of patients with a broad range of behavioral health disorders over his career. He is the coauthor of the Functional Capacity Assessment Profile, a clinical decision-support tool used to explore an individual’s ability to function effectively, to set treatment goals and to measure therapeutic progress.
In his capacity as a forensic evaluator and expert witness for over three decades, Dr. Mosk has conducted more than 1,000 comprehensive forensic examinations for courts in California and Illinois. He has extensive experience performing court-ordered mental health evaluations in child custody, workers’ compensation and disability matters, and competency exams in immigration cases. He similarly had been providing litigation support for attorneys that includes reviewing and analyzing experts’ work products, consulting on cross-examination strategies, reviewing records, and preparing litigants to undergo forensic interviews.
Dr. Mosk’s focus over the past decade has been on defining and assessing normative parenting behavior. He continues to develop the Parenting Profile Assessment System, a technology designed to help professionals organize their line of questioning about parenting activities and abilities, to simplify and structure the investigation process, uncover potential allegations by parents, maximize efficiency and derive behavioral data to supplement clinical findings. This approach is intended to help provide a richer composite of information to educate and inform the court, using a common language understood by all parties involved in the litigation.
His key interests lie in the area of parental alienation in divorce matters, which includes defining and measuring the discrete behavioral components and mechanisms involved in alienation. He is a staunch advocate for alienated family members. As well, he actively educates the legal profession and the court on the impact of parental alienation on families.
Dr. Mosk has been advising private and public sector behavioral healthcare companies on organizational, clinical, and business-related issues for over 30 years. His expertise in organization transformation, clinical service delivery, strategic planning, performance management, leadership development, and human capital optimization assists clients in improving operational effectiveness and boosting revenue. He identifies root causes of
organizational difficulties and recommends effective and often innovative solutions to align and optimize operational and workforce systems to foster organizational excellence.
Dr. Mosk brings a broad range of proficiencies in clinical protocols, outcomes measurement, population health strategies, and integrative medicine, as well as deep experience on the payer side of healthcare services, to offer clients a unique set of perspectives and skills to help solve their complex challenges. He is a widely published author, thought leader, and has lectured extensively to professional and lay groups on a wide variety of healthcare topics. He also has served on the faculty of several academic institutions.