Key Note Speakers
OPENING
ADDRESS Rosemary Bryant Commonwealth Chief Nurse & Midwifery Officer Canberra ACT Australia
Rosemary Bryant commenced in the position of
Commonwealth Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer in July
2008. She was formerly Executive Director of Royal
College of Nursing, Australia, a position she held for
eight years.
KEYNOTE (Symposium) & ORATOR
Dr. Stuart is best known for her significant
contributions to psychiatric mental health nursing. She
is a prolific writer and has published numerous
articles, chapters, textbooks, and media productions.
Most notable among these is her textbook, Principles and
Practice of Psychiatric Nursing, now in its 9th edition,
which has been honoured with four Book of the Year
Awards from the American Journal of Nursing and has been
translated into 5 languages. She has taught in
undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in
nursing and serves on numerous academic, corporate and
government boards. She has represented nursing on a
variety of National Institute of Mental Health and
National Institute of Nursing Research policy and
research panels. She has received many awards, including
the American Nurses Association Distinguished
Contribution to Psychiatric Nursing Award, the
Psychiatric Nurse of the Year Award from the American
Psychiatric Nurses Association, and the Hildegard Peplau
Award from the American Nurses Association.
No Health Without Mental Health Professor Gail W Stuart, Symposium Keynote (USA)
Nurses provide holistic care, but the systems in which we work most often fragment service delivery into physical and mental health domains. This presentation will reveal the prevalence of mental health problems in all aspects of health care, and create a compelling case for the true integration of nursing care in the general medical sector. Specific ways in which all nurses can make a difference will be discussed, including strategies for stigma reduction, mental health screening, stress management, facilitating treatment compliance, and promoting mental health. The emphasis will be on the resounding message that there can be no health without mental health.
KEYNOTE Dawn Freshwater is Professor of mental health and Dean of School of healthcare, University of Leeds. Her research interests span across mental health, prison health care and psycho-social interventions. She is keen to examine and develop innovative ways of understanding and implementing research within the healthcare system and has used a variety of post modern approaches to underpin her research grant activity. She is the author of 15 books, has contributed widely to academic discourse around research methods and is the Editor of Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. She is a fellow of the Royal College of Nursing (UK) and a registered psychotherapist and supervisor.
Maxwell Bennett AO is Professor of Neuroscience in the University of Sydney, Scientific Director of the Brain & Mind Research Institute and holds the first University Chair awarded for research and achievements. He graduated in Electrical Engineering and did his doctoral research in Zoology at Melbourne University before turning to brain sciences and being appointed to the second Personal Chair at Sydney University after Lord May. His books and papers are concerned with research on the formation and function of the synaptic connections between nerve cells, on the history and philosophy of the brain sciences, and on science policy. His most recent books are The Idea of Consciousness, History of the Synapse, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Neuroscience & Philosophy and History of Cognitive Neuroscience. Amongst the organisations he has founded to promote science and brain research are the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies and The International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience.
Mental Illness and Cognitive Neuroscience Professor Maxwell Bennett AO (AUS), Keynote Wednesday
The McNaughton rules for determining whether a person can be successfully defended on the grounds of mental incompetence were determined by a committee of the House of Lords in 1843. They arose as a consequence of the trial of Daniel McNaughton for the killing of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel’s secretary. There is no doubt’ in retrospect, that McNaughton suffered schizophrenia. The successful defense of McNaughton on the grounds of mental incompetence by his advocate Sir Alexander Cockburn involved a profound shift in the criteria for such a defense, largely based on the then recently published ‘scientific’ thesis of the great U.S. psychiatrist Isaac Ray, entitled ‘A Treatise on the medical jurisprudence of insanity’. Subsequent discussion of this defense in the House of Lords led to the McNaughton rules, which still embody the criteria for identifying mental incompetence in the courts of much of the English speaking world. I will argue that the rules need to be reconsidered, particularly in light of the discoveries of cognitive neuroscience made during the 160 years since Ray’s treatise. It is shown, for instance, how the conflation of ‘the power of self-control’ with ‘irresistible impulse’ by Cockburn is not supported by cognitive neuroscience because theses are separate capacities requiring normal activity in distinct brain structures for their expression. In this way cognitive neuroscience assists in emphasizing our different psychological capacities. It is further shown that failure of appropriate restraint in the expression of a capacity can be related to a failure of synapses in particular parts of the brain. The critical question for discussion in the near future is what level of synaptic loss will be taken as sufficient for a subject to be no longer held responsible for their lack of restraint?
During my career I have been fortunate to work at
Rush University Medical Centre which has a structure for
nurturing one’s clinical and academic interests. My
clinical interest has been creating safe and healing
environments for children with serious emotional
disorders (SED). One key to building healing
environments for children with SED is to understand the
neurobiology of child disorders and the implications of
that science to evidence-based interventions. I have
built a neurobiological model for a proactive approach
to reducing reactive aggression; one that provides a
framework for staff’ skill building.
Neuroscience and Neuro-imaging: Useful Bridges for Attuning to the Mind Professor Kathleen Delaney (USA), Keynote Thursday
Owing to advanced neuro-imaging techniques, when research participants are presented with a cognitive challenge, scientists can obtain a first-hand look at how parts of participants’ brains coordinate to address the task. Of particular importance in work with children is learning how thinking and emotional centres of the brain coordinate to facilitate another type of task, self-regulation. Self-regulation, especially in the service of meeting a social or individual goal, requires children to modulate the intensity of feeling states so that they might make adjustments to the intake of information or focus attention on salient cues. Neuro-imaging takes us inside that process. According to prominent scientists at the US National Institute of Mental Health, neuro-imaging literacy is an essential skill of the child mental health clinician, especially considering the potential treatment advances that may be derived from linking brain circuitry, psychological processes and psychiatric phenotypes. In this presentation, I present several examples of the brain circuitry thought to underlie psychological processes such as social cognition, emotional suppression, response flexibility and attention control. It will be demonstrated how these psychological processes are a useful lens for understanding extreme behavior or deciphering what children needs to help them regulate. Neuroscience and neuro-imaging also provide a useful platform for the basic psychotherapeutic work of nursing: connecting to the patient’s meaning system and narrative of experience. During these moments of intentional presence, when nurses tap into the child state of mind, they are indeed experiencing some of these very basic psychological processes at work, particularly the ones that coordinate emotional state, reasoning, and perceptual bias.
Dr Eng-Kong Tan is a Consultant Psychiatrist and an
Analytical Psychotherapist. He is Chairman of Metta
Clinic, a group practice consisting of psychiatrists and
psychologists in Sydney. He is a former Councillor of
the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of
Psychiatrists (RANZCP).
Mindfulness is Much More Than You Think Dr Eng-Kong Tan (AUS), Keynote Friday
Mindfulness has been appropriated from Spiritual Buddhist Teachings. Its meanings, practice and research has taken various routes. Unfortunately in its therapeutic use it has been oversimplified and hence its value undermined. In some research projects it has been so re-defined that it has totally departed from its essential function! This keynote will address the original meaning and its context from Buddhism. Therapeutic Mindfulness in the literature today can be a technique, a practice, a presence or an attitude. I will delineate what is useful in our clinical work that has to do with ourselves practising mindfulness and how teaching mindfulness can benefit our patients. I will then arrive at a clinical definition of mindfulness in caring for ourselves and our patients. Research findings from neuroscience is now explaining and validating the benefits of mindfulness meditations. Indeed the areas of the brain and neuronal tracts activated in mindfulness parallels our current neurobiological understanding of psychotherapeutic change. This keynote will address some of these more recent and interesting discoveries, which are validating ancient Buddhist traditional practices. When we understand the multifaceted nature of mindfulness we can employ it to improve the mind of the carer. Such a fuller appreciation of the depth of mindfulness can powerfully enhance mental health nursing care at the coalface. I will conclude with mindful ways a helping professional can reduce work stress and prevent burnout. There will be brief exercises in experiential mindfulness and time for comments, questions and discussion. |
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Allison Kokany
When Minds Need to Care Allison Kokany, Consumer Keynote Symposium (NSW)
The perceptions and experiences of a mental health consumer traverse the whole health care system. Health care professionals working in the general health field usually know the nature of their patient’s physical illness and what they are being treated for. But how would you determine if a patient in your care was suffering from a mental health issue? General Hospitals provide particular care according to the patient’s medical diagnosis and illness and treatment received is tailored to a specific ailment. The incidence of mental illness in patients being cared for in general settings frequently goes unnoticed or unrecognised. This system is not geared to pick up signs and symptoms of mental illness, mental disorder and mental stress in patients who are being cared for. Without a doubt, at some stage everyone will come into contact with a person who has a mental health issue, be it a patient, a loved one, friend or colleague. In order to assist you to care for mental health consumers in the general hospital setting, the issues of stigma and discrimination also need to be addressed. Mental health consumers need others to know me before you judge me, and this highlights that what you do makes a difference. The difficulties mental health consumers face when they attend a general hospital for care will be discussed - What nurses should be aware of with regard to signs and symptoms a patient may display that indicate they are mentally ill or becoming mentally ill and what nursing staff should do to help.
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