NW Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Conference - Building Bridges IV in Thunder Bay
BUILDING BRIDGES IV
Northwestern Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Conference
Concurrent Disorders in Specialty Populations
March 19 - 20, 2009
DaVinci Centre, Thunder Bay, 340 S. Waterloo Street
2 Day Conference - $160 Registration Fee Per Person
Dr. Cornelia Wieman - March 19th, 2009
Culturally Safe Care for Aboriginal People & Facilitating Mental Wellness in Aboriginal Communities: Where Do We Go From Here?
An ongoing challenge for health and mental health service providers is addressing the gaps and disparities in services for various populations, including the Aboriginal population. Providing more culturally safe care can improve both access and utilization of mental health services by Aboriginal peoples. This presentation will describe several clinical and research initiatives that aim to address this challenge. Some practical applications of these examples will be shared.
Dr. Cornelia Wieman, MD, FRCPC is Canada’s first female Aboriginal psychiatrist (Anishnawbe). From 1997-2005, she worked at Six Nations Mental Health Services, a community mental health clinic based on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She is both Co-Director of the Indigenous Health Research Development Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Gabor Maté - March 20, 2009
The Hungry Ghost: Understanding Addiction from Heroin to Workaholism (A Biopsychosocial Perspective)
Gabor Maté currently works as the staff physician at a clinic for drug addicted people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, many of them with other mental health issues and HIV. In his most recent bestselling book, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, he shows that their addictions do not represent a discrete medical disorders but only the extreme end of a continuum of addictive behaviours rife throughout our society. The source of addictions is not to be found in genes, but in the early childhood environment where the neurobiology of the brain’s reward pathways develops and the where the emotional patterns that lead to addiction are wired into the unconscious. Stress then, and later in life, creates the predisposition for addictions, whether to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, or to behavioural addictions such as shopping or compulsive sexual acting out.
Helping the addicted individual requires that we appreciate the function of the addiction in his or her life. More than a disease, the addiction is a response to a distressing life history and life situation and, at the same time, a limitation of the addict’s own possibilities.
Topics to be covered include:
1. What is the source of addictions
2. What happens chemically and physiologically in the brains of people with substance dependency or behaviour addiction;
3. The false “blessings” of addiction as experienced by the addict (e.g., as emotional anaesthetic, as personality booster, as social lubricant, and so on)
4. The development of the addicted mind: how childhood experiences shape the brain
5. The social basis of addiction in economic, cultural and political dislocation and
disempowerment
6. How much choice does the addict really have and how much responsibility;
7. Developing a therapeutic relationship in which healing is possible
8. How to encourage the addict to take responsibility
9. The prevention of addiction in adolescence and before
10. The spiritual void at the heart of addictions
Bridge Project: Making the Transition to Adulthood a Positive Experience for Young People Living with FASD - March 19
The Bridge Project is a demonstration project designed to improve the quality of life of young people living with FASD who are transitioning to adulthood. It provides practical transition support services; assistance accessing housing, income and employment; social and life skill development; and advocacy within the larger service systems
Lake of the Woods District Hospital - Mental Health and Addiction Services
For More Information:
Kari Chiappetta, Conference Coordinator
Phone: (807) 621-6225 / Email: kcconsulting@shaw.ca
Fax: 807-577-6800
Register Online at
www.buildingbridgesconference.ca
Registration Deadline
Friday March 9th, 2009