2026 ATNS Conference

Workshop Summary:

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When treating males with neuroplasic symptoms it is not uncommon to see various patterns of emotional restriction. Toxic masculinity provides a title to the group of patterns observed relative to emotional presentation, relational capacity, and self-identity. Key components that are often contributing to psychosomatic responses such as back pain often include emotional suppression, externalizing of distress or anger, unrecognized shame, hyper-independence or denial of vulnerability. This presentation will review the stigma of the title "toxic masculinity," what it does mean and what it does not mean. It is not an attack on males or the subject, rather the avoidance that can be toxic to one's own well being. I will review ways of identifying its presence such as intellectualization as a defense, unrealistic standards for perfection and how these may be tied to one's definition of masculinity, and fears of being perceived as weak. The presentation will include common somatic clues men may illustrate in session, and methods of disarming what often present as lifelong behavioral patterns.


Learning Objectives:

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1. How to recognize toxic masculinity within the typical patient population of those seeking treatment for neuroplastic symptoms.
2. Using a psychodynamic approach to minimize defensiveness.
3. Leveraging countertransference to build safety in emotional expression.
4. Disarming old, lifelong messages tied to the definition of being a man.
5. Build tools in alignment with new definitions of being masculine.

Workshop Summary:

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As neuroplastic approaches gain wider acceptance, many clinicians face a difficult question: Are
we sometimes too gentle? While validation and emotional safety are essential, excessive
accommodation and reassurance can inadvertently reinforce fragility, avoidance, and
symptom-related threat signaling. This presentation explores how behavioral boldness, graded
exposure, and accommodation reduction can help patients move beyond intellectual
acceptance of a neuroplastic diagnosis toward meaningful functional recovery. Attendees will
examine common therapist barriers to decisively expanding activity, including fears of causing
harm, symptom flare-ups, or alliance rupture. Practical clinical frameworks will be provided for
advancing exposure work, responding effectively to setbacks, and promoting resilience without
sacrificing compassion.


Learning Objectives:

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

1. Identify common patient accommodations (behavioral, cognitive, and relational) that maintain symptom-related threat signaling despite intellectual acceptance of a neuroplastic diagnosis.
2. Differentiate between supportive validation and therapist behaviors that inadvertently reinforce fragility or avoidance.
3. Design graded exposure hierarchies that explicitly target accommodation reduction and functional expansion in chronic symptom presentations. 4) Formulate clinical responses to symptom flare-ups that reinforce resilience and neuroplastic learning rather than fear-based retreat.
4. Recognize internal therapist barriers (e.g., fear of causing harm, alliance rupture, or symptom exacerbation) that may limit behavioral boldness in treatment.

Workshop Summary:

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his session reframes food sensitivities as a nervous system mediated experience rather than a reliably testable pathology. Integrating modern pain science treatments, eating disorder informed care, and nutrition science, clinicians will learn how fear learning and symptom monitoring reinforce food-symptom loops and how to safely and ethically guide clients toward flexibility and relief without reinforcing restriction or invalid testing practices. ATNS clinicians frequently encounter patients stuck in restrictive diets and food fear based on previous disordered eating diagnosis or disordered eating brought on by seeking medical interventions. This session offers a neuroplastic framework to help patients move toward safety, flexibility, and symptom relief.

 

Learning Objectives:

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1. Describe how food sensitivities can develop and persist through neuroplastic mechanisms, including fear conditioning, predictive coding, and interoceptive threat learning
2. Critically evaluate the clinical validity of commonly used food sensitivity tests and understand their potential impact on patient outcomes 
3. Implement modern pain science treatments and eating-disorder–aware strategies to support safe food expansion and symptom reduction -
4. Utilize trauma-informed language and interdisciplinary collaboration to reduce fear-based restriction while validating patient experience

Workshop Summary:

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I propose a new lens for understanding how neuroplastic symptoms are generated, perpetuated, and resolved. Because we require connection for survival from birth, the most salient source of danger is the lack of emotional safety within attachment relationships. Building on the definition of shame as “the fear of disconnection,” I argue that it is this specific relational fear that most often triggers the brain’s alarm mechanism. Repeated experiences of insufficient emotional attunement in early relationships prime neural networks toward sympathetic activation and habitual self-devaluation. This establishes sensitization to disconnection threat (i.e., shame) early in development and the compensatory, shame-avoidance strategies that promote neuroplastic symptoms in adulthood.

Learning Objectives:

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1. Define shame and explain its role as a core driver of neuroplastic symptoms and treatmentresistance.
2. Identify manifestations of shame and shame-avoidance in their own internal experience and in their patients.
3. Describe how shame-based neural networks are formed in early attachment relationships and maintained in adulthood.
4. Apply high-quality self-empathy and PRT-informed principles to the process of training out of persistent shame patterns. 
5. Recognize and effectively address shame dynamics within the clinical relationship.

Workshop Summary:

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This session explores how adolescent neurodevelopment shapes the expression of neuroplastic symptoms—including pain, dizziness, fatigue, and OCD related patterns—and how play and attachment based interventions can restore flexibility in threat driven systems. Participants will learn developmentally attuned, nonshaming ways to help teens understand the interplay between anxiety, OCD, and neuroplastic symptoms. The session also highlights strategies for partnering with parents to reduce accommodation, strengthen connection,


Learning Objectives:

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1. Neurodevelopment & Intervention Participants will be able to describe how adolescent neurodevelopment, coregulation, and attachment dynamics influence neuroplastic symptoms, and identify at least two playbased strategies that promote flexibility and safety.
2. The Neuroplastic–OCD Intersection Participants will be able to articulate developmentally attuned ways to help adolescents build observing capacity to recognize the interplay between anxiety, OCD patterns, and neuroplastic symptoms.
3. Partnering With Parents Participants will be able to coach parents in attachment based responses that reduce reinforcement of threat loops, strengthen connection, and support environments that foster safety and neuroplastic symptom change.

Workshop Summary:

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Loneliness and disconnection amplify threat physiology and can keep neuroplastic symptoms persistent. This session expands standard fear-reduction models by teaching connection as a trainable safety signal and strategic joy as a trainable recovery catalyst. We define joy not as “toxic positivity” but as a set of practical skills (e.g., connection-building, savoring, gratitude, kindness, strengths, attainable goals, positive reappraisal) that broaden attention, support approach behavior, and strengthen safety learning across neuroplastic symptom presentations.

Learning Objectives:

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

1. Sescribe how loneliness and social disconnection can function as a threat amplifier relevant to neuroplastic symptom persistence
2. Recognize common clinical presentations of loneliness/disconnection in patients/clients with persistent symptoms (life-narrowing, avoidance, shame, reduced co-regulation)
3. Experience connecting to own inner loving adult for a constant available resource
4. Integrate strategic joy skills into neuroplastic recovery work in a way that is capacity-matched and realistic—especially for patients/clients with pain flares, fatigue, fear of symptoms, or high levels of shame
5. Outline a practical strategy set that integrates feeling connected, connection-building, and joy skills to support neuroplastic recovery across varied presentations

Workshop Summary:

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It is clear that the skills and methods coming out of mind body medicine are transformative for those with neuroplastic symptoms. What is less acknowledged is the way in which our field can both help and learn from those with ongoing structural conditions.

Neuroplastic and structural are not the binary they have often been presented as. My personal and professional experience bears this out. A sizable portion of people have a complicated and nuanced mix of both. Even those with the most structural of conditions notice that neuroplastic factors can intensify or de-intensify their overall suffering.

After publicly sharing my own story of living with disabling structural pain for decades, my practice has attracted clients who also live with ongoing structural issues, including cancer, MS, ALS, post-stroke pain, tethered spinal cord, among other conditions. Almost to a person, these are individuals who have been turned away and turned off by the world of mind body medicine, having been given the implicit or explicit message that the persistence of their symptoms was somehow their fault. Many of these people in turn blamed themselves for “failing” to eliminate all of their symptoms, the shame of which caused them even more suffering. This is particularly sad given that mind body
practitioners on the whole are among the most compassionate people out there, and this disconnect could so easily be overcome with greater exposure to those clients whose bodies do not fit the neat neuroplastic mold.

Collectively, my clients and I have gained a lot of hard-earned wisdom that would greatly benefit the field. Not only can this work help us too — albeit in different ways and with different outcomes than for those with primarily neuroplastic issues — but also our experience has taught us a new and more empowering paradigm of healing.

In my practice, we focus not on “recovery” but on healing, which I define has empowering yourself to live a rich, meaningful, and connected life, regardless of symptoms. You can have one without the other. Recovery is something you can hope for, but healing is something you can do.

The traditional gold standard of “success” in this field— achieving a complete absence of symptoms— actually maintains a focus on symptoms, which contradicts one of the central tenets of this work. As such, I propose we define “success” not as the absence of symptoms but as the presence of healing. Releasing practitioners from the pressure
of bringing about fast and complete symptom relief for their clients would also no doubt free them up to be more fully present in their practice.

In the end, all humans are mortal beings, and if we have the privilege of living long enough, every last one of us will experience “structural” issues. A new paradigm of healing could equip everyone — clients and practitioners alike — with better skills to live a fuller life and to take power back from the symptoms.

As practitioners, we teach our clients about the promise of neuroplasticity. PRT, of course, is a therapeutic practice that hinges on the idea that we can learn new things. But the field would benefit from viewing itself as capable of learning and growing. We can learn a great deal from those for whom “recovery” is not be possible but “healing”
is. Expanding our umbrella in this way would significantly extend the reach, scope, and power of our work. I invite us all to embrace this opportunity.

Learning Objectives:

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At the conclusion of the session, attendees will learn:

1. New language for talking with clients about how many symptoms are not black or white, structural or neuroplastic, but a nuanced mix of structural & neuroplastic
2. A new perspective which views mixed neuroplastic/structural symptoms as nothing to fear, but as opportunities for learning and growth for clients and practitioners alike
3. A new paradigm of healing that empowers clients with the skills to live rich, meaningful, and connected lives, even in the absence of “recovery”
4. A new definition of “success” in this work not as the absence of symptoms but as the presence of healing

Workshop Summary:

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This talk presents an integrative approach to neuroplastic pain treatment that combines Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET). While both modalities have demonstrated efficacy, many patients fail to achieve full recovery when treated with a single approach. This presentation introduces a unified framework centered on “reinterpretation” and the use of paired “double exposures” to both pain sensations and emotional experiences. Attendees will learn how integrating somatic tracking with emotional processing from the outset of treatment can enhance efficiency, improve regulation, and increase recovery rates in patients with chronic pain and neuroplastic symptoms.


Learning Objectives:

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1. Identify the shared core mechanism of reinterpretation underlying Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), and how it informs treatment of chronic pain.
2. Explain the rationale for integrating somatic (pain-focused) and emotional exposures in the treatment of chronic pain and neuroplastic symptoms.  
3. Demonstrate how to implement “double exposures” in clinical practice, combining emotional processing and somatic tracking within a single treatment framework.
4. Apply strategies for flexibly shifting between emotional and pain exposures based on patient presentation, including managing symptom flares and emotional activation.

Workshop Summary:

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Patients with neuroplastic symptoms often present with vigilance, intensity, and persistent self- monitoring—patterns that can interfere with engagement in mindbody treatment. This session explores play as an overlooked but clinically relevant pathway for increasing nervous system flexibility in both patients and clinicians. Through the lens of predictive processing, participants will consider how playful engagement may reduce threat signaling and support the updating of threat-related predictions. Emphasis will be placed on helping clinicians and coaches cultivate lightness and ease, and bring greater flexibility, safety, and spontaneity into their work with patients.


Learning Objectives:

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1. Identify the role of vigilance and predictive processing errors in maintaining neuroplastic symptoms (ie, using tools as weapons)
2. Guide participants in experiential practice of recognizing threat-based predictions and increasing lightness
3. Develop skills in educating patients about the role of intensity and lightness on the nervous system in clear, validating and compassionate ways
4. Empower participants to use play in their clinical practice