Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Patrizio Paoletti
Patrizio Paoletti Foundation for Development and Communication, Italy
Keynote: Prefiguring the future: An educational project to strengthen resilience and hope in individuals and communities facing natural disasters
Time : 10:10-10:50

Biography:
Abstract:
Keynote Forum
Tal Dotan Ben Soussan
Patrizio Paoletti Foundation, Italy
Keynote: Increasing resilience: Molecular and electrophysiological changes following Quadrato Motor Training
Time : 10:50-11:30

Biography:
Abstract:
- Psychiatric Emergencies | Mental Health and Wellness | Human Resilience | Mental Disorders | Womens Mental Health
Location: Silverstone

Chair
Luis Allen
Advent Health, USA

Co-Chair
Moira Laura Eva Dechef
Jewish General Hospital, Canada
Session Introduction
Luis Allen, Jessica Koontz and LaDonna Sampson
Advent Health, USA
Title: A novel approach to behavioral health care services in a hospital setting
Time : 11:50-12:20

Biography:
Abstract:
Ivete Contieri Ferraz
Veritas Clinic, Brazil
Title: The influence of environmental aesthetic in the belongingness of psychiatric patient
Time : 12:20-12:50

Biography:
Ivete Contieri Ferraz is a Medical Psychiatrist, with expertise in clinical practice, with passion to improve the health and well-being of her patients. Her model of care, with an important technical foundation but open and contextual basis, it is quite divergent from the biomedical model. Based on the absolute protagonism of the human being, her model of care is a source of encouragement to understand the influence of multidisciplinary factors in the response to the patient's treatment, converging to a model like the Holistic of Health. She sediment this model in her clinical practice after 15 years of experience in hospital institutions, being currently in research, builds its theoretical foundation, seeking increasingly to understand pluralism in Health and the purification of the physician-patient relationship and its therapeutic function.
Abstract:
Spatial aesthetics in health settings remain a challenge due to the difficulty in balancing disease prevention, such as the aseptic and ergometric protective needs of clinical hospital design, with health promotion through exposure to beauty. The objective of this work is to identify the importance of the aesthetics of the environment in the treatment of Mental Health, through bibliographic research of qualitative character using Pubmed and SciELO databases, between the years 1996 to 2018, with the keywords: Design, Architecture, Art, Mental Health, Humanization, Psychiatry and Aesthetics. The indications of this work being that the aspects making up the design were extremely important as attributes of humanization, because they produce belongingness, respect and special dignity in the patient. The main variables influencing the aesthetic environment highlighted in this article are light, sound, colour, aroma, texture, and shape. The design belongs to the aesthetic-artistic perspective, reinforces the protagonism of the sick human being in detriment of the disease, reinforces the expansion of the concept of care and enhances the patient's response to treatment. The conclusion reiterates that the multiaxial aspects brought about by the design of environments within hospitals, is in line with the holistic model of health, producing health promotion and positive responses to patients.
Biography:
Bobby Syiemlieh has completed his graduation from College of Nursing, NEIGRIHMS, Meghalaya, India, as well as Post-Graduation in Psychiatric Nursing from AIIMS, New Delhi, India. He is currently working as Nursing Officer at AIIMS, Raipur, India. His area of interest includes Preventive Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Severe Mental Illness. He has attended and presented scientific papers in national and international conferences.
Abstract:
Background: Resilience is the process of harnessing biological, psychosocial, structural and cultural resources to sustain wellbeing. If family members are resilient, they can overcome stress associated with providing care for a person having mental illness and preserve their own health and the health of their family.
Material & Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken on 100 adult family caregivers of patient having schizophrenia and its related disorders who were selected consecutively from out-patient clinics of department of psychiatry, in a selected hospital, New Delhi. The data were collected using subject information sheet for caregiver and patient, Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC) for assessing the resilience of caregivers and Brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) to assess the psychopathology of patient. The collected data was analyzed using STATA 14.0 software. Ethical clearance was obtained from ethics committee of the selected hospital, New Delhi.
Result: The mean age of caregivers and patients were 47.7(±11.5) and 29.8(±9.3) respectively. Sixty five percent of the family caregivers were male. Most of the caregivers were having high score on resilience scale, with mean scores of 72.14(±16.1). Caregivers who were spouse were found to be more resilient as compared to other caregivers who were giving care to patient having schizophrenia and related disorders (p=0.0006).The caregivers who had only one child are more resilient than those who had more than two children (p=0.04). A significant association was found between the resilience levels of caregivers with the age of the patients (p=0.003), marital status of the patients (p=0.002), occupation of patients (p=0.0002) and with monthly income of the patients (p=0.008).
Conclusion: A family caregiver caring for mentally ill patient constantly experience various challenges, be it in caring issues or in meeting their own needs. Most of the study subjects have shown good levels of resilience which is a protective factor for their own mental health. However the mental health care workers need to counsel and guide the family caregivers to enhance their resilience level whenever they visit the clinics for follow ups.
Nela Pivac
Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Croatia
Title: Significant association between brain derived neurotrophic factor gene polymorphism C270T and cognitive symptoms in veterans with PTSD
Time : 14:30-15:00
Biography:
Nela Pivac has her expertise in evaluation of molecular basis of neuropsychiatric disorders including PTSD, and in the search of biomarkers of these disorders. She is a leader of the national and international projects, and a winner of the scientific awards.
Abstract:
Statement of the Problem: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a trauma and stressor related disorder characterized with specific clusters of symptoms including cognitive disturbances. Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a neurotrophin with important role in modulation of neuronal growth, plasticity, neurotransmission, stress response and cognition (learning, memory), all processes are altered in PTSD.
Methodology: The study included 333 male Caucasians with combat-related current and chronic PTSD. They were evaluated using SCID, PANSS, CAPS, and two PANSS cognitive subscales: PANSS Cognition subscale 1 and PANSS Cognition subscale 2. Genotyping of the BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) and BDNF C270T (rs56164415) was done using the primers and probes from the TaqMan® Drug Metabolism Genotyping Assays on ABI Prism 7300 Real time PCR System apparatus (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) in DNA samples. Results were evaluated using Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and Dunn post-hoc test, or Mann Whitney U test, or C2-test.
Findings: When veterans with PTSD were subdivided into TT, TC and CC genotype carriers of the BDNF C270T, TT carriers had significantly higher scores on both cognition subscales, i.e. the most severe symptoms vs. carriers of the CT and CT genotypes. These results were confirmed when veterans with PTSD were subdivided into T carriers (the combined TT and TC genotypes) vs. CC genotype carriers. When veterans with PTSDwere subdivided according to the BDNF Val66Met genotypes, their cognitive symptom scores were not significantly different.
Conclusion & Significance: This is a first study of the significant association between BDNF C270T (rs56164415) and cognitive disturbances in PTSD. Carriers of one or two of the minor T allele of the BDNF C270T were more likely to have worse cognitive symptoms compared to CC genotype carriers.
Tania Di Giuseppe & Grazia Serantoni
Patrizio Paoletti Foundation, Italy
Title: Promoting human resilience through the pedagogy for the third millennium
Time : 15:00-15:30

Biography:
Tania Di Giuseppe is a Psychologist, Supervisor and International Trainer of the Patrizio Paoletti Foundation, working in both Italy and abroad. She has collaborated with the Sapienza University of Rome, Padua University and Scientific University Cientif a of Perù (Iquitos), promoting training and research on the constructs of awareness, hope, resilience and planning. Since 2008 she has been involved in the design and implementation of projects and training courses in favor of professionals, teachers and the community, especially in the context of emergency and social exclusion.
Grazia Serantoni: Psychologist, Individual, Group and Organizational Psychoanalyst, Group-Analyst. She specialized in quantitative and qualitative research methods and she works as methodology consultant for both public and private institutions, carrying out research activities in healthcare, educational and clinical systems. She published several books and scientific works in national and international journals. Her scientific interests focus on: evaluation and program planning frameworks for healthcare, educational and clinical services; evaluation of efficacy/effectiveness of: educational interventions, psychodynamic multifamily groups and therapeutic communities’ interventions for psychiatric patients; grief, bereavement and trauma assessment and intervention strategies; psycho-oncology; parenting stress index and health education.
Abstract:
In the current socio-economic and political moment, which increasingly fragmented and challenging, human resilence is a necesary ability which has to be continuously nourished through educational programs. In the last 18 years, Paoletti Fondation (FPP) has created interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and educational methods for 12 resilence-induced prevention and intervention programs, conducted in 9 countries. FPP has taught over 1800 educators the Pedagogy for the Third Millennium (PTM). PTM is a neuro-psycho-pedagogical method aimed at increasing self-awareness, mental health and resilence by enabaling: (1) an utile narrative of the self, (2) self-observation and (3) divided attention. Training these key alements, in turn, allow positive cognitive, emotional and bodilyy regenerative development. In the current talk, we will present the Schools of the World (SOW) project. The results of the SOW will be discussed in the light of promoting effective self-programming for strengthening self-awareness and resilience in those who work in emergency services and contexts of social marginalization.
Jonna Karasmaa
University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Title: Agency and resilience behind the we-ness: a case study of a couple therapy for mental disorders
Time : 15:30-16:00
Biography:
Jonna Karasmaa is a PhD student from the University of Jyvaskyla. She works as a Psychologist with psychosis patients in the outpatient care of adult psychiatry.
Abstract:
Our presentation addresses the resilience phenomenon in the context of couple therapy and mental disorders. The presentation is based on our article, which is the first article of her ongoing dissertation research. We consider resilience as an ability to learn new through adversities, in distinction to generally known resource oriented approach in psychotherapy field. We introduce one therapy case, in which both spouses had severe mental disorders, and difficulties in managing their daily life with these disorders. They did not seek help for relationship problems, instead the relationship was their resource. One can say, that they had a strong sense of we-ness. In couple therapy research we-ness and we-stories have commonly been regarded as resilience. Still, we claim that the concept of we-ness does not reach the multidimensional nature of resilience. To capture this multidimensionality we have used Froma Walsh’s family resilience framework as a theory. The data was derived from the Relational Mind research project (2013-2016) funded by the Academy of Finland. The project was conducted by the University of Jyväskylä in collaboration with four other universities in Europe. The data was gathered in a natural setting within couple therapy sessions conducted in the Psychotherapy Training and Research Centre in the University of Jyväskylä. In the presentation she will describe, how the strong we-ness prevented spouses to develop their more agentic and autonomic forms of resilience, and how quarrels in therapy led them to learn new ways to interact with each other and other people.
Patrizio Paoletti, Tal Dotan Ben Soussan & Tania Di Giuseppe
Patrizio Paoletti Foundation, Italy
Title: OMM (One Minute Meditation) path for increasing resilience and well-being
Time : 16:20-17:20
Biography:
Patrizio Paoletti is the President of the “Patrizio Paoletti Foundation for Development and Communication”. As President of the homonymous Foundation, Paoletti is leading international social projects and educational programmes with the aim of promoting human resilience, personal and community well-being. He is member of several scientific boards and committees ad has numerous publications concerning lifelong learning processes for personal and social development and growth. Moreover, he is one of the leading teachers of meditation in Italy and the creator of several scientifically studied meditation techniques, including: One Minute Meditation (OMM); Quadrato Motor Training and OVO Whole-Body perceptual deprivation Tank.
Tal Dotan Ben Soussan is the director of Neuroscientific Research Unit, of the Patrizio Paoletti Foundation. Leading studies examining the effects of different training paradigms on neuroplasticity, resilience and well-being, Ben-Soussan’s multidisciplinary approach utilises electrophysiological, neuroanatomical and molecular tools to examine the underlying mechanisms promoting cognitive and emotional well-being. Ben-Soussan's pioneering work on the Quadrato Motor Training has demonstrated that specifically-structured sensorimotor activity can improve neurobiological, emotional and cognitive functions. She is also applying her neuroscientific model to examine the interconnectedness of motion, emotion and cognition for increasing resilience and performance in the workplace, as well as in schools and neurodegenerative states.
Tania Di Giuseppe is psychologist, supervisor and international trainer of the Patrizio Paoletti Foundation, working in both Italy and abroad. She has collaborated with the Sapienza University of Rome, Padua University and Scientific University Cientif a of Perù (Iquitos), promoting training and research on the constructs of awareness, hope, resilience and planning. Since 2008 she has been involved in the design and implementation of projects and training courses in favor of professionals, teachers and the community, especially in the context of emergency and social exclusion.
Abstract:
Psychosocial factors, such as increased levels of social engagement, positive emotion, and dispositional optimism have all been shown to promote resilience. In addition, our brains are continuously shaped both functionally and structurally by experience on which explicit training can capitalize to promote more adaptive brain functioning. These factors, as well as additional characteristics of resilience, such as positive self-concept/esteem, self-awareness, hopefulness, emotional expression, emotional management in stressful situations, and interpersonal problem-solving skills can increase by traininig, such as meditation. The current workshop will first present qualitative and quantivative research findings that illustrate how people can benefit from training, and especially from meditation, in terms of neuroplasticity and psychological well-being. We will, then, have a practical experience of OMM – One Minute Meditation methods - and will learn the procedure of how to: (1) become more relaxed and increase concentration, (2) prefigure more effectively, while acquiring more Detachment from needs, Distance from negative emotions and Determination; (3) improve the ease in relating to others thanks to the focus on personal values, thus achieving more self-awareness. By these experiences and by the neuroscientific results demonstrating the physiological effects which can be obtained following a minute of training (e.g. decreased cortisol, improved neuronal function), we will further learn not to underestimate the power contained in just one minute. An infinite number of things happen in a very short time. Together with the fact that these state changes are also achievable with open-eyes makes it appealing for potential applications in daily life.
Nonye Aghanya
Pace University, USA
Title: The patient in room 1B... confronting our fears to overcome reservation and build trust
Time : 17:20-17:30
Biography:
Nonye Aghanya is working at Retail/ Hospital Pace University-New York, Alexandria, Virginia.
Abstract:
Poor communication skills greatly contribute to the mistrust that is often experienced between patients and clinicians. It’s important to note that patients often experience high levels of apprehension during their clinical/hospital visits. Sometimes, such high anxiety levels manifest as various patient attitudes that could become a deterrent to the development of productive clinician-patient relationship. It is vital for nurses/clinicians to refrain from using a one-size-fits-all communication approach for all patient encounters because people have different personalities and backgrounds and thus perceive and react differently to the same information presented to them. The key for trust development is in the delivery method of information. To attain trust development through effective communication, the clinician’s communication style must be tailored to each patient’s personality, attitude and back ground. Naturally, many, if not all nurses and clinicians put their best foot forward during each patient’s consultation with the expectation to make a connection with the patient and have a productive conversation. It’s important to note that realistically, however hard a clinician may try to make a great impression, due to various reasons, there are still many patients who would not achieve a decent level of comfort with the clinician. As a result, an honest and productive conversation is not achieved which hinders the development of a successful clinician-patient relationship. Often, effective communication between two individuals does not happen naturally at first, it must take a conscious effort on the clinician’s part to be realized. Do you know that there is a strategic approach to experience a stress-free, successful consultation with each patient for improved trust development and productivity? The book, Simple Tips to Developing a Productive Clinician-Patient Relationship gives simple tips to achieve this for 16 different patient attitudes/behaviors. Author has also had a 23-minutes video presentation with concise learning/teaching tools available upon request for school programs, conferences/seminars etc.