2026 ATNS Conference

Workshop Summary:

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In this work, we focus a lot on how our childhood experiences influence the development of neuroplastic symptoms. But we don’t really talk about the role that parenting plays. In this talk two providers in this field will share their own unique parenting experiences with their children with special needs, and how this has influenced their care. We will also discuss parenting from as “preventative“ standpoint. Finally, we will outline parenting styles throughout the years, and how this influences their children’s personality traits, adaptive and maladaptive strategies and contribution to development of neuroplastic symptoms.


Learning Objectives:

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1. Learners will be able to describe 2-3 parenting styles/philosophies associated with different generations (eg. baby boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Y).
2. Learners will be able to identify 3-4 current parenting styles and practices that may still be harmful and contribute to personality trait development the leads to neuroplastic symptoms
3. Learners will be able to list a 3-4 "gentler" parenting practices that parallel the tools we use to help patients recover from neuroplastic pain.

1. Workshop Summary:

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The fear-avoidance model has been studied extensively and understanding and addressing the components of it can be useful for patients struggling with fear and specifically fear of symptoms, movement, injury, postures, activities, etc. Working through this model can help patients reduce fear, regain confidence, and restore agency, as well as reduce symptoms. The fear-avoidance model includes some core components that can cause and then continue to contribute to a vicious chronic pain cycle. These components include pain catastrophizing, pain-related fear/ kinesiophobia, hypervigilance, avoidance, disuse, depression, and disability. Many of these components can be assessed for and then addressed in the treatment.
For some patients, the main threat or danger (fear) are the symptoms themselves, what they mean, the importance they take on, and the threat value they represent. For. example, prior learning, beliefs, and negative medical information like physical diagnoses and mis-interpreted scans can raise the threat value of the symptoms. This can lead to a sequelae of downstream negative effects like mental catastrophizing (thinking for the worst), excessively or intently focusing on the symptoms (hypervigilance), and then fearing the symptoms and the activities that could cause them (kinesiophobia). This can then lead to a cycle of avoidance in attempt to keep symptoms at bay. A person's world can then shrink leading to disuse, potential disability, and feelings of depression. This is the fear-avoidance cycle in a nutshell.
The goal is to first identify if these fear-avoidance components are at play in a patient. Assessing the patient can include direct enquiry and questioning, but it could also include proven and validated screening tools like the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS)for example. Then the clinician or coach can look to address these fear-avoidance components, working with a number of strategies. This first would be ruling out that the symptoms are structural (physical) and then ruling in they are neuroplastic (using patient history and the FIT criteria). One could then use for example, Pain Re-Processing Therapy (PRT) to address hypervigilance and graded exposure to address avoidance.

Learning Objectives:

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1. To understand what the Fear-Avoidance Model is and the research that supports it in relation to chronic pain and neuroplastic symptoms.
   


2. Learn the core components of the fear-avoidance model, what they mean, and how to assess for them in patients or clients. -
   


3. What strategies can you use to address these components to help people reduce fear and reduce neuroplastic symptoms.
   

Workshop Summary:

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The brain has a built-in negativity bias designed for survival: to detect threat, avoid danger, and protect us from harm. While this system is adaptive in acute danger, many individuals living with chronic pain, mind-body symptoms, trauma-related conditions, and neural circuit disorders become stuck in persistent protective states long after the original threat has passed. In these states, the nervous system prioritizes vigilance, symptom monitoring, fear, and self-protection
while often disconnecting from experiences of pleasure, ease, safety, and enjoyment.


This presentation explores how intentionally cultivating positive and pleasurable embodied experiences can help shift the brain and body out of protection and into safety, creating the conditions for neuroplastic healing. Drawing from neuroscience, positive neuroplasticity, and mind-body approaches, participants will learn how pleasurable emotional and somatic experiences support regulation, learning, and neural rewiring. Research shows that positive emotional states, intrinsic motivation, play, and reward-based learning enhance neuroplasticity by strengthening new neural pathways and helping the brain update outdated protective patterns.


Central to this workshop is the HEAL framework, developed by Rick Hanson, PhD, which offers a practical method for transforming beneficial state experiences into lasting internal traits. Participants will learn how to intentionally notice, enrich, absorb, and optionally link positive experiences in ways that help counter the brain’s negativity bias and build durable inner resources.


The session will also explore common barriers to pleasure and positive experience, including hypervigilance, fear, perfectionism, emotional inhibition, and people-pleasing patterns that often accompany chronic symptoms and trauma-related adaptations. Through experiential exercises and practical applications, attendees will learn how to help clients reconnect with embodied experiences of pleasure, safety, curiosity, connection, and ease.


Learning Objectives:

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1. Describe how the brain’s negativity bias contributes to chronic protective patterns and how positive neuroplasticity practices help counterbalance those tendencies.
2. Understand and apply the HEAL framework to help clients transform beneficial state experiences into lasting internal resources and traits.
3. Explain how positive and enjoyable embodied experiences help shift the nervous system out of protective states and support neuroplastic healing.
4. Recognize common barriers to pleasure and positive emotional experience, including fear, hypervigilance, perfectionism, and people-pleasing patterns.
5. Apply practical experiential tools that help clients cultivate embodied safety, emotional openness, pleasure, and resilience in clinical or coaching settings.

Workshop Summary:

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With an estimated 20% of the global population suffering from chronic pain, one of the primary challenges for providers is finding ways to expand our reach (without also expanding our work hours and burnout risk) in a manner that allows more individuals to have access to much- needed care. Our presentation will focus on an effective and rewarding way to meet this challenge: offering groups, such as group medical visits, therapy groups, and coaching groups.


Working with clients in a group setting can provide unique benefits, such as lessening clients’ sense of isolation, improving health outcomes, enhancing the effectiveness of individual sessions, and providing the opportunity for clients to learn new skills and strategies in a safe and supportive environment. We’ll discuss clinical, logistical, and  administrative elements, potential challenges that can arise in a group setting, and what we’ve learned from our experience working with patients and clients utilizing this format.


Learning Objectives:

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At the conclusion of this session, attendees will be able to:

1. Understand the value proposition of various types of groups (i.e., group medical visit, therapy group, and coaching group), both from a client perspective and a provider perspective
2. Understand the basic elements of groups, including clinical, administrative, and logistical components, depending on the setting and type of group being offered
3. Understand the common issues and unique challenges in groups treating chronic pain, and how to manage difficult dynamics
4. Utilize strategies for communicating about a neuroplastic pain and symptom recovery framework with colleagues and patients/clients in mainstream healthcare

Workshop Summary:

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This session explores how personal spirituality can serve as a powerful resource in the treatment of neuroplastic pain. Drawing from research on meaning-making, existential coherence, and spiritually integrated psychotherapy, we will examine how connection to purpose, values, and personal spirituality may reduce neural threat signaling, enhance emotional regulation, and support healing.
Participants will gain practical tools for ethically integrating spirituality into clinical care while honoring diverse belief systems. Through experiential exercises including visualization, breathwork, and structured relational reflection, attendees will experience firsthand how these approaches can foster greater safety, connection, and resilience.
This presentation invites clinicians to consider spirituality not as an adjunct to treatment, but as a meaningful dimension of human experience that can support recovery, well-being, and lasting transformation.

Learning Objectives:

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1. Differentiate between spirituality and religion in clinical practice and articulate an ethically grounded approach to spiritually integrated psychotherapy.
   


2. Describe theoretical mechanisms by which meaning-making, identity coherence, and personal spirituality may reduce perceived neural threat in neuroplastic pain.
   


3. Identify how existential distress, shame, and identity fragmentation can contribute to persistent pain activation.
   


4. Experience and evaluate spiritually informed interventions (including visualization, breathwork, and structured relational reflection) that may support mood regulation and pain recovery.

Workshop Summary:

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Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a complex multisystem condition increasingly recognized in both Long COVID and as a standalone condition. This workshop explores MCAS through a neuroplastic and neuroimmune lens, integrating emerging science on mast cells, stress physiology, autonomic regulation, and nervous system function. Drawing on both scientific evidence and lived experience, participants will gain a practical framework for understanding symptoms and recovery, highlighting mind-body approaches to care.


Learning Objectives:

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1. Describe the features and diagnostic criteria for mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS).
2. Recognize how stress physiology, threat perception, and learned neural pathways can contribute to symptoms and their persistence in MCAS
3. Identify evidence-informed mind-body approaches that support recovery

Workshop Summary:

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In this experiential session, you will be guided through simple somatic movement practices that can deepen emotional awareness and expression, and provide the brain with direct experiences of safety, freedom, and wellbeing.
Movement becomes more than exercise—it becomes a way of cultivating a kinder, more curious relationship with ourselves. You will leave with an embodied understanding of this approach and practical strategies to help you introduce somatic movement into your clinical work.


Learning Objectives:

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1.  Identify key principles of somatic movement
2. Apply these principles in your own experience of somatic movement
3. Develop practical strategies for integrating simple somatic movement into your clinical practice

Workshop Summary:

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Many people struggling with chronic pain and symptoms understand the theory of mind-body recovery but remain stuck when it comes to implementation. Likewise, practitioners often find themselves overwhelmed by complex explanations, competing approaches, and uncertainty about where to focus treatment.


This presentation offers a simple, practical framework for understanding and addressing chronic symptoms through the lens of perceived danger and safety.


Dan introduces the Foundation Four, the essential questions every person must resolve before meaningful recovery can occur:

1. What is causing my symptoms?
2. Does this explanation apply to me?
3. Is there a solution?
4. Am I capable of implementing that solution?
   
   

Once this foundation is established, recovery becomes less about endlessly searching for hidden causes and more about teaching the brain that it is safe.
Attendees will learn six core Safety Strategies that can help shift the nervous system out of protection mode:
• Emotional Safety – Learning that emotions themselves are not dangerous and can be experienced without fear or resistance.
• Physical Safety – Using physiology, breath, movement, and brief mindfulness practices to communicate safety to the nervous system.
• Mental Safety – Understanding that thoughts do not need to be controlled, fixed, or believed in order to recover.
• Safety with Self – Addressing self-criticism, perfectionism, and negative self-identity patterns that often reinforce danger signals.
• Response to Symptoms – Leveraging symptom responses as opportunities to teach the brain that sensations are not harmful or significant.
• Returning Focus to Life – Re-engaging with meaningful living rather than organizing life around symptom monitoring and recovery efforts.


Throughout the presentation, Dan emphasizes a central principle: while emotions may be one source of perceived danger, recovery is most effectively understood through the broader framework of reducing danger and increasing safety across all aspects of life. 


Attendees will leave with a clear, cohesive model that simplifies both the problem and the solution, making mind-body recovery easier to understand, teach, and apply.



Learning Objectives:

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By the end of this presentation, attendees will be able to:

1. Explain the Foundation Four framework and its role in establishing readiness for recovery.
2. Identify the difference between symptom-focused approaches and safety-focused approaches.
3. Apply six practical Safety Strategies that help reduce perceived danger and calm the nervous system.
4. Recognize how emotional, mental, physical, and self-related factors can contribute to danger signaling.
5. Help clients or patients shift their focus from symptom elimination to building a life centered on safety, confidence, and meaningful engagement.
6. Utilize a simplified, actionable framework that can improve communication, compliance, and outcomes in mind-body recovery work.

Key Takeaway
Recovery is not primarily about finding and fixing everything that may be wrong. Recovery is about helping the brain recognize safety. When people understand the problem clearly and consistently practice safety across multiple domains of life, symptom resolution often becomes a natural consequence.