2026 ATNS Conference

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