The document discusses an integrated model for recovery that combines 12-step principles, positive psychology, and neurochemistry. It outlines how practicing gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, and building relationships can promote happiness by activating the brain's reward pathways and reducing stress. The model also emphasizes concepts from various religions like having faith, letting go, and accepting things outside of one's control.

1. The Healing Brain: Integrating Positive
Psychology, 12-Step & Neurochemistry into a
Model for Recovery
5th annual Lifestyle Intervention Conference
October 5, 2015
8:30 – 10:00
Ralph E Carson, PhD, RD
Nutritionist & Exercise Physiologist
www.FitRxBrentwood
rcarson@contactaac.com

2. What Would You like to Say You
Achieved Following Treatment?
And What Will That Make You?
• People in the US rank HAPPINESS as their
most important goal

3. Duchene Smile
Authentic
Pseudo-
How Can You Tell if Someone is Happy?

4. • Zygomaticus
• Obicularis oculi
– Constrict eyes
– Raise cheeks
– Gather skin towards
bridge of nose

5. STRESS

7. Left Prefrontal Cortex Right Prefrontal Cortex
Prefrontal
Cortex
Happiness Anger
Fear
Disgust

8. Striatum or Nucleus Accumbens
Dopamine Circuit

9. Left Prefrontal Cortex Right Prefrontal Cortex
Prefrontal
Cortex
Happiness Anger
Fear
Disgust

10. Pleasantness Circuit
(Davidson ’98, ’00, ’02, ‘03a, ‘03b, ‘07; Tomarken ’92; Lyubomirsky ’07 )

11. NEUROGENESIS

13. What Makes Humans Unique?
• Ability to think
and act in the future
• Uniquely strong herd instinct

14. Herd Instinct

15. Orbitofrontal Cortex

16. What Medications Besides Antibiotics
and Chemotherapy Cure a Disease?
• None
• The Body
Heals Itself
• Medications
• Act as a catalyst for
healing
• Prevent or reduce the
risk of disease
• Mitigate Symptoms

17. Asked High School Students
“What Would make You Happy?”
• Money
• Beauty
• Popularity
• Residence
• Education
• Age
• Health

19. Certain Problems for
which there are no
Solutions!
• Economic Collapse
– Higher Taxes
– Real Estate Bust
– Stock Market Crash
• Poverty
– Jobless rate
• Disease
– Cancer
– Alzheimer’s
• Community unrest
– Aurora CO
• Terrorism
– Iran
– Afghanistan
• Global Warming
– Hurricanes; Tornados

20. Worry, Unresolved Stress: Amygdala; HPA
Cortisol is Neurotoxic (Schoenfeld ‘12)

21. Stress Damages the
Brain and Alters Repair
(Kim ‘02)
• Loss of dendritic spines
(Chen ’10; Muchu ‘11)
• 8% reduction in
Hippocampal volume
(Bremner’00; Carrioin ’06; Iris-Tatjana ‘07)

22. Entropy: Organization → Disorganization
1977 Cancer
Survival Rate:
5% lived >2 years
20O7 Cancer
Survival Rate:
80% lived > 5 years
(Howlander ‘12)

24. HOPE: Thinking & Acting Positively in the Future

26. We Judge Science by whether or not
it agrees with what we believe
• Placebo:
– Believe in the act of
being treated
• Nocebo
– Believe we will get sick
• Results is what matters;
and not how we got
there

27. Those with less hope have
more heart problems
(Pedersen & Sherer ‘10; Sherer ‘07)
• Genes that ↑ heart
disease are the same
genes that make us
prone to depression
• Less Hopeful
– More vulnerable
– Greater symptoms
– Lack energy to exercise
– Follow a poor diet
– Less likely to take
medications

28. • Luck
• Optimism
• Wishful thinking
• Coincidence
• Higher Power
• Recovery Community
• Personal Epiphany
• Others Believe in you
Assurance of
Hope

29. God spot (Peel ’09; Urgesi ‘10; Kapogianis ‘09a; ‘09b)
God Gene (Hammer ‘04; Silvaira ‘08; Kluger ’04; Newberg ‘09)

30. Identify Your Personal
Strengths and Virtues
And Use Them
for the
Betterment of
Mankind

31. FORGIVENESS

32. Health Problems: Unforgiveness
(Tibbits ‘06; Worthington ‘05, ‘07; Landers Row ‘08)
• High Blood Pressure
• Elevated heart rate
• Muscle tension
• Immunosuppressant
• Addictions
• Medications
• Cortisol: Neural Cell
Death (Root ‘09; Cunningham-Bussel
‘09)
• Who Are You
Hurting if You
Don’t Forgive?

33. Rudy Tomjonovich
12/9/77

34. To Not Forgive Is Like Drinking Poison
• And Hoping Someone Else Dies
Buddah

35. Meditation

36. EEG
Psyche Grad Students Buddhist Monks

37. Removing Necrotic Skin
from Burn Patient

38. Left Prefrontal Cortex Right Prefrontal Cortex
Prefrontal
Cortex
Happiness Anger
Fear
Disgust

39. Listened to Abused
Screaming

40. Compassion & Empathy
(Kluger ’07, Panksepp 2009; Decety ’08; Schulman,
Hauser)
• Compassion:
Recognizing the
suffering of others and
wishing for that
suffering to be
alleviated
• Empathy: The ability to
imagine what someone
else might be feeling

41. Gratitude

42. Health Benefits:
Gratitude
(Emmons ’03; ‘04; Norville ‘07; McCarty ‘95;
Oelklaus ‘08; Danner ‘01; Kern ‘04)
• Addiction recovery
• Weight management
• Reduce pain and
headaches
• Lower blood pressure
• Improve
cardiovascular
function
• Improve longevity
• Reduce cortisol

43. Altruism
(Andreoni ‘09; Dietin ‘10; Smith ‘09)
• Giving without
expectation of
reward
• Put welfare of
other’s ahead of
their own

44. Relationships
• Relationships: Single
most important factor
responsible for survival
(Berscheid ‘07)
• Selfishness: Root cause
of addiction (Pagano ‘11)

45. Confide: One whom you can be candid
without fear of reprisal or stigma
• Survey: How many
people can you confide
in?
• 1985: Three
(10% only 1)
• 2004: Two
(25% no one; 25% 1)
(McPherson ’06)

46. What Does This Plan Sound Like?

47. Study the Great Religions
of the World
• Christianity
• Judaism
• Islam
• Buddhism
• Hinduism

48. 12 – STEP
(Addictions)
Positive Psychology
(Neurochemisty)
Christian Values
(Fruits of the Spirit)
Higher Power - Faith Belief God - Faith
Hope
(1-3)
Hope Hope
Inventory Faults
(4,5 10)
Strengths & Virtues Self-control
Forgiveness
(6-9)
Forgiveness Peace
Meditation – Prayer
(11)
Compassion/
Empathy
Kindness
Service
(12)
Gratitude & Altruism
Gentleness &
Generosity
Support Groups
Sponsor
Relationships Agape - Love
Sobriety Happiness Joy

49. Sensory - Thalamo -
Cortical
• Relay station: Filters
what gets through
– Auditory
– Visual
– Associative
– Somatosensory
• Gustatory
• Touch
– Prefrontal Cortex
– Motor

50. Thalamus: D2 Receptor Deficiency
• ↓Thalamic D2BP (D2
binding potential)
– ↓ Filtering
– ↑ Cortical excitement
– ↑ Creativity
• Reduced in (Santosa ‘07)
– Addiction
– ADHD
– Bipolar
– Schizophrenia

51. Change:
Letting Go
• “Change is inevitable; the
only sure thing in life is
change “ unknown
• “Change is inevitable;
suffering is optional” Zen
Buddhism
• “If we don’t change, we
don’t grow. If we don’t
grow, we are not really
living” Gail Sheehy
• “Life is pleasant. Death is
peaceful. It’s the transition
that is troublesome” Isaac
Asimov

52. WE DON’T Have to HIT BOTTOM
• “We rarely change
when life is cool and
comfortable; we change
when we feel the heat”
• “Life is like a bicycle: In
order to sat balance you
have got to keep
moving”

53. • “A turtle doesn’t make
progress until it sticks
its head out….”
• How many psychologist
does it take to change a
light bulb?
• “We change our
behavior when the
pain of staying the
same becomes
greater than the
pain of changing”
(Cloud ‘10; Mesiti ‘06)

54. • “Get over it”
• “It’s time to get real”
• “Is it working for you”
• “Awareness without
action is worthless”
• “Keep doing what you
have always done and
you will keep on getting
what you have always
gotten” Ed Foreman
• “Insanity is doing the
same thing over and
over again and
expecting it to come out
differently”

55. Choose Your Battles Carefully
in the world of public opinion
“People judge science by
whether or not it agrees
with what they believe”
“What matters is the
results; not how you got
their”
“Clinical guidelines are
consensus based and not
evidenced based”
“Statistically significant is
not always clinically
significant”

56. Serenity Prayer
(Letting Go)
• God, grant me the -
• Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
• Courage to change the things I can,
• Wisdom to know the difference
• Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr

57. Resilience & Cross Addiction
• Whack down one
addiction or compulsion
and another pops up
• Resilience: Ability to
cope with stress and
adversity

58. Recovery
• Process rather than an outcome
– Give yourself permission to take time to make new
neural connections
• Journey to rediscover the “True Self”
– Overcome problems that stand in your way
– Feel Feelings
– Reclaim your Gifts and Potentials
– Align behavior with personal virtues
– Fulfill your purpose in life

59. God's Wheel
by Shel Silverstein (Silverstiein ’81)
God says to me with kind of a smile,
"Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says God,
"I don't think you're quite ready yet."