Continuing Education Provider Professional Development Resources Publishes New Homestudy Course on the Role of Emotions in Healing

    JACKSONVILLE, FL, July 03, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Professional Development Resources has announced a new addition to its continuing education (CE) curriculum for mental health professionals: The Healing Power of Emotion. The course is based on a revolutionary book that demonstrates how to use brain-based insights and emotions to foster mental healing.

Clinicians have long debated the exact nature of the essential elements that bring about successful healing in psychotherapy. How do we regulate emotion in a healthy way? How can we foster environments that are conducive to positive relationships and optimal health? Specifically, how can we use our emotions to heal and mend emotional injuries? This course is an exploration of how we regulate our bodies, form healthy connections with others, and mend emotional ruptures when they occur.

We are "hardwired to connect with each another, we connect through our emotions," say the authors. The unique aspect of this course is in the mix of leading neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, therapy researchers, and clinicians who work together to illustrate how we can regulate emotion in a healthy way. A variety of emotions, both positive and negative, are examined in detail, drawing on both research and clinical observations. Just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart the fabric of family and psyche, the emotions can become powerful catalysts for the transformations that are at the heart of the healing process.

"It is not often that a book with such broad and far-reaching implications for success in psychotherapy comes along," says Leo Christie, PhD, President and CEO of Professional Development Resources. "Sadly, it is rare for us to see professionals in the areas of neurobiology, physiology, and psychotherapy come together in a collaboration of this magnitude. When we work in a splintered fashion, it is easy to miss the big picture, such as the one that emerges in this extraordinary volume. We are, after all, biological beings, and it makes perfect sense that physical and emotional functions are inseparable from each other."

The Healing Power of Emotion includes chapters on such topics as reciprocal influences between body and brain, the communication of sympathy and meaning, and possible answers to the essential question - What is emotion? Included also are examinations of the role of emotion in energy and vitality, pleasure and desire, emotion and mindfulness, and emotion in intimate relationships. Chapters focus on specific clinical applications with case examples, including work with individuals, couples, and families.

According to the authors, "our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them. Emotions are at the nexus of thought and action, of self and other, of person and environment, of biology and culture... Specific emotions include love, joy, pain, fear, anger, gratitude, grief, care, closeness, awe, shame, excitement, agony, passion, and compassion. At one end of the continuum, we find extreme emotional states such as helplessness, terror, despair, and immobility; at the other, faith, enthusiasm, curiosity, tenderness, aesthetic wonder, ecstasy, wisdom, awe, vitality, and even transcendence."

The psychotherapies described in this course are moving beyond exploration of pathologies to the transformative experiences where joy, new energy, and delight become possible; that and helping people regulate their dysregulated nervous system.

About Professional Development Resources, Inc.

Professional Development Resources is a Florida nonprofit educational corporation founded in 1992 by licensed marriage and family therapist Leo Christie, PhD. The company, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics - as well as many other national and state boards - has focused its efforts on making accredited continuing education units more cost-effective and widely accessible to health professionals by offering online home study coursework. Its current expanded curriculum includes a wide variety of clinical topics intended to equip health professionals to offer state-of-the art services to their clients.

Contact:
Leo Christie, PhD, CEO
Professional Development Resources, Inc.
904-645-3456
http://www.pdresources.org/

# # #