The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection · The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection...

The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection

A Teleseminar Session with Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT

and Ruth Buczynski, PhD

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of

Behavioral Medicinenicabmwww.nicabm.com

http://www.nicabm.com

The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection �

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicinewww.nicabm.com

A complete transcript of a Teleseminar Session featuring Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT and conducted by Ruth Buczynski, PhD of NICABM


Contents:

Is It Really Neurotransmitter Disregulation that Underlies Depression and Anxiety? ..............................................3

A New Theory of Depression, Anxiety and Recovery ............................7

Why Depressed People are So Hard to Get Through to ......................13

Four Activities that Promote Brain Growth ..........................................15

The Benefits of New Learning in Recovering from Depression and Anxiety Disorders ..............................................16

How Movement Fits into the Anxiety/Depression Treatment Picture ..................................................................................19


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The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connectionwith Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT and Ruth Buczynski, PhD

Ruth: Hello everyone. I’m Dr. Ruth Buczynski, a licensed psychologist in the state of Connecticut and President of the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM), and I want to welcome you to both the call tonight and to this entire series. We’re just beginning, and this will be our lead off session to a series on The New Brain Science: Compelling Insights for State of the Art Practice. Tonight we have one of NICABM’s best friends, as far as speakers go, Bill O’ Hanlon. He has written numerous books and is currently working on new projects as we speak. We know Bill as an expert in so many things—mostly hypnosis and brief therapy, but he’s got such an inquisitive mind that it goes in so many directions. In keeping with our theme of focusing on The New Brain Science, tonight we’ll be talking about brain plasticity and the depression connection. Hi Bill, how are you? Bill: Very good. It’s good to talk to you again. Ruth: We’ve several areas that we want to focus on, and I want to jump right in so we have plenty of time to do that. Let’s start with antidepressants. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. There have been a lot of theories about what it is that actually makes the antidepressant work. There have also been some new ideas that are challenging some of those theories. Can you share your thoughts on that? Is It Really Neurotransmitter Disregulation that Underlies Depression and Anxiety? Bill: First, I think it’s very important to stress that no one knows why they work when they do, or why they don’t when they don’t. There are theories, but if you watch ads on television or you’ve talked to psychiatrists that use them all the time, you’d think that it was a done deal. Everybody knows it’s a problem with the neurotransmitters. I see it on television, there






are these little neurotransmitters that are having trouble. That’s a theory; it’s not entirely supported by the facts, and there are some new developments in “theory land” as well as in clinical practice that suggests something else is going on. Yes, neurotransmitters are involved in some way, but not in the way that we thought, so, I was really excited about learning this information and sharing it with other people. I’ve been working in psychotherapy for many years in a brief or solution oriented approach, and now some of this brain plasticity and new neuroscience is supporting some of that work as well as positive psychology, which has had some controversy. There’s always this American tendency to think positive, but I think positive psychology has something else to it that may contribute to our understanding of how people are helped out of their depression: why some people don’t respond that well to antidepressants; why sometimes, depressed people are so hard to treat; why they’re not always treatment compliant; and why they’re not always available for treatment. These new understandings and ideas are telling us some other roads to take and why we aren’t doing so well with some of the people, but we are doing well with others. That’s what I got excited about and want to talk about today. Ruth: That is exciting. Before we jump into that, let’s review. Not everyone on the call tonight is a mental health practitioner. But many are in some area of health, such as physicians, nurses, physical therapists, people in nutrition and so forth. Just so we’re all starting in the same place, the old theory that you and I were referring to, it’s more about seeing depression as a deficiency of norepinephrine and serotonin. Can you say more or summarize what the old theory actually is? Bill: Well, let’s talk about two types of old theories. One is from when we were coming up: there was somewhat of a biochemical explanation for a lot of mental illness and disturbance, the brain was damaged in some way, and then it was fixed. Basically, if you didn’t get the type of nurturing or attachment that you needed as a child, then that was set for life. If you had some type of brain or neurological illness such

“Positive psychology may contribute to our understanding of how people are helped out of their depression.”



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as manic depression, depression, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, or personality disorder, it was sort of “fixed” in the nervous system. So, part of that theory was that some people just had a genetic problem that expressed itself in their neurotransmitters not working too well. There was either a lack of neurotransmitters, or too much of a certain neurotransmitter. The ones you mentioned, norepinephrine and serotonin, were the chief suspects. There was also dopamine, but those were the two most popular things. They created a revolution in antidepressant medication treatment when those theories were put forth because all of a sudden there were some medications for patients to take. Basically they did it almost like those ADD drugs. They are stimulants. You would wonder why someone with ADD would be given a stimulant—turns out, there is somewhat of a paradoxical effect, and it’s the same thing with these so called SSRI’s, which were a little different from the original antidepressants that were used in the 1960’s. These started coming in during the 1970’s and they just flooded the brain…and the brain just changed those levels of neurotransmitters, which seemed to affect people’s depression. Also, sometimes they have side effects that make people not want to take them, or they can’t tolerate them. So, there were some unsolved issues. If it was really that, how come it took so long to work? If you’re putting this stuff in the brain, it should work pretty quickly. That’s the idea, because then there are more of those neurotransmitters available to transmit the correct signals. They should have worked pretty quickly, but they didn’t. I came into this through a side door. I’ve been a therapist for years and, of course, dealt with depression, but not a psychiatrist and not a physician, I don’t typically use medication myself, but I had so many clients and patients who were on them. I, like most therapists, got pretty familiar with the course of them. In turn, I got really interested in brain plasticity. There was a book that just blew my mind written by Norman Doidge, who’s a psychiatrist

“The Brain That Changes Itself was mind-boggling; it updated brain neuroscience

... to show that the brain can change at any time in life.”



The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection 6




and psychoanalyst from both New York and Toronto…mostly in Toronto right now. One of the people on my newsletter list recommended his book to me. It’s called The

Brain That Changes Itself. In fact, in the United States, PBS has featured this brain plasticity information on a couple of programs with Norman Doidge, and he’s currently creating a new series. This book, however, was mind-boggling to me; it sort of updated this brain neuroscience stuff that

we all learned in the early day; that fixed model, and it said that there’s a revolution in neuroscience that says the brain can change at any time in life. That’s what’s so great about human beings—we can adapt to any environment and any situation and how our brains actually, structurally and physically work is based on what environments we’re in. So, that was the good news (but there was bad news in terms of depression). The good news is that it started to be clear that psychotherapy and other kinds of interventions, which we’ll talk about in a little while, could actually change the brain like medications change the brain. We didn’t have to just rely on medications to affect depression anymore, and we’ll talk about anxiety as a sidelight to this, but mostly the focus is on depression. That gave everybody hope, but here’s the bad news about brain plasticity. There’s a principle that’s been stated by a more modern researcher, based on Donald Hebb’s work in neuropsychology and neurology that says “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Meaning, things get associated, and Freud said that a long time ago about mental and emotional processes. Actually, it’s been demonstrated neurologically, physiologically, and neuronally, that the more things happen in concert and are associated with one another, the faster those neurons fire and connect with one another and the thicker the connections between them become.

“That’s what’s so great about human beings—we can adapt to any environment and any situation; and how our brains actually, structurally and physically work is based on what environments we’re in.”

“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”



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So, again, that’s why I said it was good news and bad news. The good news is, if you’ve got good stuff firing and associated, that’s great. If you’ve got bad stuff firing that doesn’t feel so good or doesn’t work so well, that gets reinforced as well. That, to me, was very exciting and interesting, but also very worrying in terms of what happens with depression. Ruth: Yes, and we were so excited about Norman Doidge that we had him presenting at the conference this past December at the Psychology of Health Immunity and Disease Conference in Hilton Head, SC. Can you relate his ideas to your understanding of depression? When we think of brain plasticity, how does it affect how we see depression?

A New Theory of Depression, Anxiety and Recovery Bill: Well, this is where the rubber hits the road for me and it gets interesting. Here’s the new hypothesis: it’s The Neurogenic and Neuroatrophy Hypothesis of Depression instead of the Neurotransmitter Hypothesis of Depression. Now remember, these are hypotheses, not truth. They’re just suggested theories, and for a while, we’ve had the neurotransmitter one, which is what the drug companies use in their antidepressant ads. But, this is a slightly different one. So far neither of them has won out, but this new one is starting to be the primary theory.

So, first of all, stress, which plays a key role in triggering depression, suppresses neurogenesis, brain growth, in the hippocampus. That is a new discovery in the last twenty five years…and it was doubted for a long time. But brain growth happens all through life. It happens a lot when you’re an infant and in childhood.

And as we grow up, it still happens…it happens all the time throughout life. Now, when

“First of all, stress, which plays a key role in triggering depression, suppresses neurogenesis, brain growth, in the hippocampus. ”

“The good news is, if you’ve got good stuff firing and associated, that’s great. If you’ve got bad stuff firing that doesn’t feel so good or doesn’t work so well, that gets reinforced as well.”







you’re under stress, it doesn’t feel good and that generates inflammation, which is usually not good for us, and as it turns out, it doesn’t help brain growth. Under too much stress, the brain doesn’t grow new connections or new cells, and in fact, with chronic stress, the brain shrinks in a certain way and sometimes there are even brain legions, just as if you had physical brain damage. With the after effects of really severe brain trauma, you see legions or infections in the brain. This seems to happen when you have chronic stress, and when those brains are imaged later, you can see that there is some brain shrinkage or legions in the brain. So, it’s interesting…why do antidepressants work when they work? One of the theories based on the neurogenesis hypothesis, is that when they (antidepressants) work, they’re encouraging the birth of new brain cells. They’re almost like vitamins helping the brain counteract the effects of stress, and they start to either grow new brain cells or make new brain connections. So, that’s kind of the “nub” of the theory, and there’s some evidence for it. First of all, studies show that animals must take antidepressants for two or three weeks before they bump up the birth rate of brain cells, and it takes another two weeks before they start functioning. That’s about how long people describe the first lift in mood from antidepressants, and most psychiatrists and physicians who prescribe these will probably tell them not to expect results right away. Sometimes the placebo effect kicks in a little earlier, but for the most part, when antidepressants work, it takes about three to six weeks for people to feel a change. It’s interesting, too, because in the animal studies, that’s how long it’s been shown to help the brain start to grow new brain cells, or new neurons, and new connections between neurons. So, that suggests that maybe this brain growth hypothesis is more accurate than the neurotransmitter hypothesis.

“One of the theories based on the neurogenesis hypothesis, is that when they (antidepressants) work, they’re encouraging the birth of new brain cells.”

“Under too much stress, the brain doesn’t grow new connections or new cells, and in fact, with chronic stress, the brain shrinks.“



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Ruth: That’s really exciting. Just this past weekend, I put out a new blog and it was on some work at HIH by Heather Cameron. In her lab, they were focusing on rats and they were focusing on corticosteroids and we all know that corticosteroids are the hormones that are released from the adrenal in response to stress.

What they found was that as the corticosteroids increased, the neurogenesis in the rats decreased; which is just the same as what you’re saying, the intense of heavy stress inhibited brain growth. They also found that when corticosteroids were removed, which would come as a result of any stress reduction efforts that you and I might recommend, the rate of neurogenesis came back in the rats. As a result, the older rats started to have more of what young adult rats’ brains would look like. It was very interesting to read about Heather Cameron’s work. Bill: That exactly fits in. It’s a funny thing because after over twenty years, everyday physicians, everyday psychiatrists, and neurologists all agree there’s a big connection between epigenetics-- not just genetics. That was the old model of mental illness, and brain problems: that it was just genetic or maybe congenital, that somewhere in the womb there was damage in some way. Now, they’re saying, it’s your environment, it’s your thinking, it’s your emotions, it’s the food you eat, it’s how you exercise; all that stuff has an influence on what happens in the body. That’s the really great news because if that’s true, those of us who don’t always use medications and have other approaches can feel excited if we can influence those stress levels in whatever way we can.

“When corticosteroids were increased, the neurogenesis in rats decreased... when corticosteroids were removed, the rate of neurogenesis came back.”

“It’s your environment, it’s your thinking, it’s your emotions, it’s the food you eat, it’s how you exercise... all that has an influence on what happens in the body.”







Now, there’s another bit of evidence that I want to make sure we get to before we ask what we can do about this. And that is, just like the studies you were just talking about, if antidepressants are given during a period of chronic stress, they prevent the decline of neurogenesis that normally occurs. Now usually if there’s no intervention, not just antidepressants, but no intervention, then people see a decline in brain growth, as you’re talking about—fewer neurons are born, and fewer connections are made between the neurons that are there with new learning. And they’re saying when we see in these animal studies, if we give antidepressants to these rats, then typically we’ll see that neurogenesis continues at the same rate that it happened before the stress. So that’s suggestive as well of this hypothesis. Now, a couple more bits that I just want to make sure we get to: people with head injuries in early adulthood experience higher rates of depression over their lifetime. Even if there’s no obvious after- effects of this brain trauma, people with really serious head injuries that happened earlier in their life, when they compare them with other people who didn’t have them, those with serious head-injuries have higher rates of depression. So, that’s not causal, but certainly suggestive again. Now you would think people with Parkinson’s disease, or brain injuries, or head injuries are going to be depressed because of their conditions, but they’ve scanned the brains of people with Parkinson’s that have certain brain legions in the areas that are associated with emotions, the hippocampus mostly, and they found that the people with more brain damage tend to be depressed. We all know people with illnesses who are in pretty good spirits and aren’t depressed as well as people who are depressed. What they found is there is a brain legion or lack of growth, you could say, there as well. Now, here’s another one that may freak a few people out. Electroconvulsive therapy, or electroshock therapy--the more modern approach is a little less traumatic and more humane—also works in cases of severe therapy. What they found after electroconvulsive therapy is that brain growth starts. It encourages brain growth. Again that may seem paradoxical because you’re probably killing off some brain cells, but you and I exercise regularly and people who know the theory of

“A little stress is good for the brain.”



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exercise—that is, you’re creating little stresses on your muscles, little stresses on your bones if you run, and those little stresses tell the body that there is some damage going on and to fix it. The immune system jumps up, the muscles build up stronger, the bones build up stronger, and it seems to be the same thing. A little stress is good for the brain. Somehow this electroshock stuff might be just that nature of a little stress that restarts brain growth which typically has decreased or stopped during periods of chronic stress or depression. So, again, I’m just citing these things as being suggestive of the new hypothesis. I know I said it before, but just a couple more…the brain growth hormone that most people are talking about, including John Ratey, who is one of the psychiatrists who has also written about this and brought together some of the studies in his book, Spark, talks about BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) as the miracle grow of the brain.

When BDNF is released in the system and gets to the brain, it really helps brain growth and connections within the brain. Well, post-mortem studies have shown that depressed patients had decreased hippo campo and cortico BDNF levels, and several studies have shown increased BDNF when people are treated with antidepressants for sometime.

So, that’s again my laying out of this new thinking about depression. And a lot of drug companies are now thinking, instead of SSRI’s, those antidepressants that have become popular over the last twenty or thirty years, other alternatives that would enhance BDNF levels, and other insulin related growth hormones, can really support new brain growth and new brain connections. That’s both an exciting and preliminary direction for antidepressants. The exciting news for those of us that work in mind, body, or psychotherapy is that there are many other ways to affect brain growth. Ruth: Now before we get into them, I just want to back up because I think your connection

“When BDNF is released in the system and gets to the brain, it really helps brain growth and connections within the brain.”

“Antidepressants that have become popular over the last twenty or thirty years, other alternatives that would enhance BDNF levels, and other insulin related growth hormones, can really support new brain growth and new brain connections.”



The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection 1�




with Parkinson’s was really interesting, but we jumped over it awfully quickly. So, if you wouldn’t mind going back to that, and then we’ll go forward into many of the treatments that you and I both know of as having the same potential that the pharmaceuticals are going to come up with that we really can affect in many other ways. But let’s go back to the connections with Parkinson’s and lay that out just a little more slowly. Are you saying that Parkinson’s patients are often diagnosed with depression before Parkinson’s or after? Bill: After, and not all of them show depression. We all know people who have different levels and are diagnosed with some wasting and chronic diseases like Parkinson’s or MS, or others like that. In both of these disorders, there is thought to be some brain growth death or some neuronal death—there is something that is causing fewer brain cells to be available, or fewer brain connections available. They’re finding that the people that have damage in those areas that are related to depression, that are typically in brain scans and post-mortems and have more damage are the ones that are more likely to be depressed. Again, that’s preliminary, and it’s really hard research to do because some of it is post- mortem, some is FMRI, and the brain scan stuff, which is expensive, is getting cheaper by the decade so we’ll probably get more evidence of this. In these chronic neurological disorders such as MS, Parkinson’s, and obviously with Parkinson’s dopamine is involved…and when they look at these patients depending on where the damage starts to happen or has happened…if its spilled over into those areas that are affected by, or typically associated with depression or look like depressed peoples’ brains, then they’re more likely to be depressed. Ruth: We almost would say that lack of brain growth, and what we could also refer to as Neuroatrophy may be a symptom of depression, or it may be another way to describe depression. Bill: I think that’s right. It’s probably both. Again, these are the early days, and we’ll find out more if this hypothesis is supported.

“For those of us that work in mind, body, or psychotherapy, there are many other ways to affect brain growth.”



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Why Depressed People are So Hard to Get Through to

Here’s the other clinical insight. Depressed people, you can tell them things, and sometimes, it just doesn’t stick. They just don’t remember sometimes what you told them. They don’t absorb it, and if they do, they don’t follow through, or master it. Sometimes it seems like they make some gains, and then slip back.

It may not be because they are treatment resistant. It may be because their brains are just not forming those new connections they need for memory and skill building. So, there are things that do affect brain growth and new connections. Again, let’s just underline this: it’s either new neurons being born in the neurology, and/or new and stronger connections that are forged together. So if you learn new things, and it’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s not too overwhelming or too stressful or too far beyond your reach, then, if you can, stretch a little and then a little more. For example, what I try to do with most of my depressed people is get them moving because exercise is very related to new brain growth, new connections and things like that. My partner is a psychiatrist and she says it’s a big stretch for some people to get up and exercise when they are depressed, so have them start out by simply laying out their clothes. When they can do that, have them put them on, and slowly work their way up. We’ve learned that experts get good at what they do by choosing stretch goals. So, don’t give them too big of a stretch, but stretch them just beyond their abilities a lot of times when they practice. I think the same principle holds in learning anything new, whether it’s new music or a new language. But I think depression is such an intractable problem sometimes…this is where, you know, learning a new language, using music, any new physical abilities whether it’s juggling or exercise… Ruth: I just wanted to stop for a minute to show everyone where we are in the agenda because this seems to be flowing so well. What we’ve just talked about is why depressed

“If you learn new things, and it’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s not too overwhelming or too stressful or too far beyond your reach, then continue to stretch a little more and even more beyond that.”







people are so hard to get through to. If you find that you’re working with a patient and over and over again, I think what I’m hearing you say Bill, is that it may be that neurologically, they’re just not integrating. Their brains just aren’t making connections from the ideas of what you are saying into what they already know or how they can use it. Bill: I think that’s right. You’re taking it to a moral dimension like we’ve done with alcoholism and addiction and things like that. It’s just saying that maybe their brains just aren’t available right now given the level of stress and depression they have for taking in and learning new information, like the rest of us may be able to do on a daily basis. So, just to back up for a bird’s eye view: we, a lot of times talk about this as a new hypothesis (as opposed to) the old hypothesis which was a neurotransmitter hypothesis of depression and genetic hypothesis of depression. Now were moving on to The Neuroatrophy and Neurogenesis Theory of Depression, a recovery from depression and that’s more hopeful because the brain plasticity is there. But again, it’s a more worrisome thing because the more you’re depressed, perhaps the more brain damage that gets created, and with the lack of brain growth, maybe those pathways get wired-in even stronger. So, early intervention obviously, or prevention of depression is best—but most of the time we don’t have that luxury. So, once somebody is depressed, they may not be as available as we just talked about, but there are little things that we can do to sort of move them out of depression, and these interventions aren’t all medication oriented. Ruth: Okay, so now let’s talk about some of the activities that promote brain growth.

“Early intervention obviously, or prevention of depression is best—but most of the time we don’t have that luxury... but we can move them out of depression, with interventions that aren’t all medication oriented.”



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Four Activities that Promote Brain Growth Bill: The two that really come to mind: music, which is interesting, because there’s a study that was done and it showed that among expert musicians certain areas of the cortex are �% larger than people with little or no musical training.

In musicians that started training in early childhood the corpus callosum is 1�% larger, and in professional musicians, the auditory cortex contains 1�0% more gray matter than that of non musicians. I think many people here have heard of Dean Ornish, the heart doctor who’s gone beyond that to try a lot of prevention and recovery from heart disease and now he’s gone a little beyond that.

He says that if you exercise, or stretch yourself in anyway and get movement going, and I would say music too, you could actually grow your brain inside your skull. It gets both more complex and larger.

They’ve been able to measure brains and have found that parts of those brains (or the whole brain itself) are larger the more you learn. So, we’re trying to restart brain growth and the best thing to restart brain growth is movement. And movement, instead of exercise, I think is a better word. Getting out of bed and walking from one room to another, walking outside, moving vigorously, and if you can…just walking are simple interventions people can do with their patients. If you can get them up walking and talking, you’ve either challenged the brain growth stoppage…familiarized some of that lost brain and started brain growth with these small things. And obviously social connections, which Dean Ornish said was love, and the

“With musicians that started training in early childhood the corpus callosum is 15% larger, and in professional musicians, the auditory cortex contains 130% more gray matter than that of non musicians.”

“The best thing to restart brain growth is movement.”







neurobiology of relationships all affect the brain. Our brains are developing throughout our lives. Social connections, plus movement, plus learning anything new…if you can get that depressed person to learn anything new, those are probably the simplest interventions we can do to restart brain growth and challenge the brain atrophy or neuronal atrophy that is happening.

The Benefits of New Learning in Recovering From Depression and Anxiety Disorders

Ruth: You know, it’s fascinating and it does kind of go along with the science of happiness. The work they’re doing in that field brings all of this together. Bill: Again, it’s back to the brain plasticity. We know if the brain is going in the same groove again and again, which with depression it typically does, if you could use any of the psychotherapeutic interventions, or physical interventions, any of those things could stop those old brain cells from firing together. I wrote a book called Do One Thing Different and it was all about breaking patterns. Positive psychology is exciting to me. I’ve been involved in the solution oriented approach for a long time. If we can activate old brain pathways that had solutions, that had positive emotions attached to them that had more grateful emotions attached to them more spiritual feelings attached to them, more sense of connection to other people, then we’d be counteracting the brain path that depression invites you down. So after a while, depression can get like the Grand Canyon, but luckily there are other pathways that are already grooved in the brain, or other pathways we can start to groove with new activities. That’s the exciting part of brain plasticity. It’s also the dangerous part of brain plasticity. The more you reinforce a certain groove, the more likely it’s triggered and it’s just going to fire off if no interventions are done.

“Social connections, movement, plus learning anything new… those are probably the simplest interventions we can do to restart brain growth and challenge the brain or neuronal atrophy that is happening.”



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So not intervening in depression is a bad idea. Usually when it’s serious depression, it doesn’t resolve on its own. Mostly it can resolve when something changes the groove. Studies have shown if you can get people to remember three things they are grateful for, or remember some good times in their life, and they did this for only fifteen days, people moved from being severely depressed, to mildly or moderately depressed. That’s what’s so exciting about this hypothesis for me. Ruth: …what you’re saying is that depression, which we’ve always thought of as dangerous because of the element of suicide, and because it brings such a lack of functioning, but we’re also saying that as the depression lasts longer and longer, the brain almost hardens in that state…the neurogenesis depreciates and moves into a state of atrophy which just makes the depression worse and worse, and the longer depression goes on, the harder it is to resolve. Bill: And what we talked about before comes into play: the harder it is to take in new learning. So, you get a hardening of the categories, or sometimes I call it the theory of sclerosis where we start to think the same thoughts and start to believe those thoughts, and it’s harder to get the new thoughts in the longer it goes on and the more those grooves are reinforced.

Ruth: I wasn’t planning to do it right at this spot, but I think this would be a good place to talk a little about the two courses you’ll be teaching with NICABM. These are distance learning courses and they actually begin this Sunday and I’d like to spend just a minute talking about each one. Can you tell us a little about what you’ll be doing in The Science of Happiness?

Bill: Over the last, almost twenty years, there’s been a new focus in psychology research about investigating how people function best: what makes them happier, more satisfied, and what makes their relationships work better instead of focusing on what was wrong with people, which was the first one hundred years of psychological research. And a problem with research is that most of us are in clinical situations and there’s no

“If you can get people to remember three things they are grateful for, or remember some good times, and they do this for only fifteen days, people can move from being severely depressed, to mildly or moderately depressed. ”







clear way to bridge that gap between the research and the practice. But what I’ve done in this course is brought together as much of that research as I could that could translate over into clinical work, and then show how you can respectfully transfer positive psychology findings into clinical work, or whatever you do to help people. So, that’s the positive psychology course, and it’s related to the solution oriented therapy approach, which is a well worked out clinical model, and it’s been researched. Some colleagues and I started that in the 19�0’s. We started articulating this approach: instead of focusing on talking (or coaching) on what’s wrong, we focus on what’s right and try to get more of it to happen. So, we go back to the past, find out what went well, we have people imagine what in the future could go well, and what’s going well in the present. Instead of trying to fix the problems, we try to go back to the brain and its plasticity, creating new brain grooves that focus on what works rather than what doesn’t work. Ruth: And each of those courses is eight weeks long and is structured in a step-by-step fashion that is an integrative approach. A new lesson is out every Sunday and Wednesday and you actually listen to it anytime you want, and then you have assignments and a message board. You’ll be taking it with people from all over the United States, actually many parts of the world and on the message board you share your reactions to the assignments and what’s working and what’s happening with your patients and so forth. Bill: There are two aspects to this course that are quite extraordinary. We designed them but were surprised about how well they worked. One is the conjoined community that is created around this material. We see with social networks, people do interact, and sometimes very deeply to help and support each other. So a community gets created around these courses and that’s really amazing to see. The second thing is, unlike going to a live-workshop for one to three days, then going home, these courses offer on-going support. They’re designed for mastery of these

“Instead of trying to fix the problems, we try to go back to the brain and its plasticity, creating new brain grooves that focus on what works rather than what doesn’t work.”



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applications. We discovered that in some ways, skill building through distance-learning is more effective than live-learning. Ruth: Let’s go back now. We’ve been talking a lot about depression. Let’s talk a little bit about anxiety.

How Movement Fits into the Anxiety/Depression Treatment Picture Bill: It’s the same kind of thing. There’s a brain involvement in it, and exercise and movement seem to have a good effect on most kinds of anxiety. However, not all exercise has a good affect. It seems “pumping iron” seems to raise anxiety. With some anxiety, some kinds of vigorous exercise can raise anxiety levels. Otherwise, it’s much like depression. That is, sometimes people are given antidepressants for anxiety. So, obviously, there are the same types of effects.

Mostly though, moderate movement seems to decrease anxiety. So, these movement exercises seem to be the best thing for anxiety. It’s not universally true, and you have to find out what’s best for that person.

Exercise has been shown to bring down levels of trait anxiety, as well as state anxiety. It’s a little different from depression, but the same kinds of things happen. Walking sessions with people that are anxious might help them calm down enough to where they can take in what you are saying and also start some new associations. Dr. Buczynski: Might be a preparatory approach to new learning. John Ratey talks about that in one of his books: a school teacher did extensive exercise before class with kids that were not gifted kids by any means, and he found that all of their grade levels went up.

“Walking sessions with people that are anxious might help them calm down enough to where they can take in what you are saying and also start some new associations. ”

“Exercise and movement seem to have a good effect... Research indicates that after aerobic exercise, for the next, approximately twenty four hours, it’s easier to grow new neurons and to make new neuronal connections. ”



The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection �0




Bill: Well, that’s the thing. When I was growing up, I had to do physical education, but now it’s not always required in schools. Some schools that have reinstated it found that students were doing better. The research indicates that after you aerobically exercise, for the next, approximately twenty four hours, it’s easier to grow new neurons and to make new neuronal connections. It’s no guarantee, but if the kids aerobically exercise, their brains are more available for learning. Ruth: I’m afraid we’re out of time, but this has been so exciting to integrate so many of the ideas that we’ve been looking at.



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About The Speaker:Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT, has authored or co-au-thored �0 books and has published �� articles or book chapters. His books have been translat-ed into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, German, Chinese, Bulgarian, Turkish, Korean and Indonesian, Italian, Croatian, Ara-bic and Japanese. He has appeared on Oprah (with his book Do One Thing Different), The Today Show, and a variety of other television and radio programs. ...more HERE

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