New Courses and More!

Gaps and Gains – July 30, 2021
Understand the Social, Emotional and Academic Setbacks and Gifts (Yes, Gifts!) of the Covid-19 Year with Clinical Implication. How has the last unprecedented year and a half affected our children and teens? During this pandemic season, youth have experienced loss, trauma, racial justice concerns, excessive screen time, upended routines, and...

Transgender and Gender Nonbinary Youth: Clinical Tools for Working with Youth Across the Gender Spectrum – August 13, 2021
Presenter: Caroline Carter, PsyD This generation of youth are profoundly expanding our understanding of the possibilities available for gender identity and expression. In light of this, many clinicians who work with youth, despite their specializations, may find themselves working with a young client who holds a transgender or gender nonbinary...

Effective and Compassionate Clinical Work for Gender-Expansive Children, Teens and Families – September through November, 2021
This course is presented in connection with the Institute for Girls’ Development, Pasadena, CA. Presenter: Susan P. Landon, LMFT This generation of youth is profoundly expanding our understanding of the possibilities available for gender identity and expression. In light of this, many clinicians who work with youth, despite their specializations,...

On-Line Courses – Home-study Options
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Addictive internet games
The Washington Post online had an interesting piece today about teens addicted to onliine games and the havoc such an addiction or obsession can cause in a person’s life. There is, of course, a lot of research and concern about this issue. The author, Caitlin Gibson, quotes psychologist Kimberly Young,...

Emotions are Like Dogs
Emotions are Like Dogs: On the Difference Between Emotional Regulation and Stuffing It When I think about emotions and emotional regulation, I often think about a dog who was my friend. Her name was Tasha and she was half Siberian Husky and half German Shepherd. She and I shared a...

Cooking Slowly – A Tale of Ever-Changing Times
NOTE: If you find this interesting, click on the link at the end to find an expanded version for which you may be able to obtain Continuing Education credit. There is an old adage that if you put a live frog in a pot of water and heated it gradually,...

My Brain Made Me Do It? And Other Questions About Neuroscience
REVIEW: Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience, Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, NY: Basic Books, 2013. This book is short (156 pages of text) and easy to read while being well researched and documented (61 pages of interesting, helpful notes and citations – in a point size...

Giving Guns to People with Mental Health Disabilities
There is news from Capitol Hill which underscores the notion that there is more to fear in Washington, DC than just the the White House. According to an article in the NY Times on February 15, 2017. Congress has acted to reverse and Obama administration rule requiring the Social Security...

Review: Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease (2010) by Gary Greenberg. Published by Simon and Schuster. This book presents a combination of research and Dr. Greenberg’s personal experience with depression. He takes a position critical of today’s prevailing view that depression is a brain disorder caused by a...

Review: The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine.
The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. Shigehisa Kuriyama. NY: Zone Books, 2002. (Winner of the 2001 Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine) First of all this is a beautiful book. One does not often say that about academic...

On Playing Well with Others
Ask mathematicians about their experience of the craft, and most will talk about an intense feeling of intellectual camaraderie. “A very central part of any mathematician’s life is this sense of connection to other minds, alive today and going back to Pythagoras,” said Steven Strogatz, a professor of mathematics...

Autism, Vaccines and the Trump Administration
“So what’s going on with autism? When you look at the tremendous increase, it’s really – it’s such an incredible – it’s really a horrible thing to watch, the tremendous amount of increase…” (February 14, 2017, reported in the Washington Post) “When I was growing up, autism wasn’t really a...

Review: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right Author: Jane Mayer NY: Doubleday, 2016 This is a detailed, well-researched look into the monetary forces driving the far right, including movements like the Tea Party (and far, far more). The subjects of the...

Hyperbolic Geometry (or How I Became a Postmodernist)
This story begins with an almost unbearable 10th grade Geometry class— unbearable because of the attitude of the teacher. He shall remain nameless, but if he reads this (unlikely to say the least), I’m hoping he will recognize his part. It was 1963 and I was a good and reasonably...

My Thanks to Dobby the House-Elf
My Thanks to Dobby the House-Elf These days the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is what’s hot— and with good reason. Tolkien’s world is richly drawn and philosophically based. I haven’t heard anyone mention Harry Potter in months. But, no matter how overshadowed the Harry Potter books are by the...
Illuminated Education is a DBA of Dr. Chris D. Cooper, Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Cooper is licensed in the states of California (PSY 17398) and Massachusetts (PY 7896-PR).