Cutting Edge Treatment - Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Training Program Northern California

Presenter Bio

Dacher Keltner’s research focuses the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and power, social class, and inequality. As a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, he is a leading scholar in the study of emotion, including a new project on awe around the globe, as well as power, class, and inequality. Dacher also serves as the Faculty Director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. In 2020, along with Michael Pollan and others, he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center will conduct research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception and emotion and their biological bases in the human brain.

Dacher is the author of The Power Paradox, as well as the bestseller Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and The Compassionate Instinct. He has published over 190 scientific articles, including seminal works on the psychology of awe (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) and is the co-author of two textbooks. He is also co-editor of Dacher Keltner Professor of Psychology, Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Center & Author “A landmark book in the science of emotions and its implications for ethics and human universals.” — Library Journal, about “Born to be Good The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, London Times, and Utne Reader, and his research has been covered in TIME, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the BBC as well as many other outlets. His new book is Awe: The New Science Of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Trans-form Your Life (Penguin Random House, January 3, 2023).

Dacher has collaborated on projects at Facebook and Google and served as a scientific consultant for Pixar’s film Inside Out. He is featured in Tom Shadyac’s documentary I Am. He has twice presented his research to His Holiness the Dalai Lama as part of a continuing dialogue between the Dalai Lama and scientists. Dacher has received outstanding teacher and research mentor awards from UC Berkeley and seen 20 of his PhD students and post-doctoral fellows become professors. Dacher is an outstanding speaker who has received several national research and teaching awards. Wired magazine has rated the podcasts of his “Human Emotion” course as one of the five best academic podcasts in the country. The Utne Reader named Dacher as one of its 50 Visionaries of 2008. In April 2020 he was voted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Dacher Keltner, PHD

In this course I will detail the latest advances in thinking about cutting edge treatments, with a particular focus on the transcendent states – awe, gratitude, love, joy, bliss, reverence. I will detail the latest thinking in the evolution and neurophysiology of these states. I will consider how they shift our mental states in ways that are beneficial for mental and physical health. I then will consider different cutting-edge approaches to mental and physical health, with a brief focus on nature, music, and visual art, and the ways they benefit health through experiences of transcendence. Grounded in this new science, I then will offer a survey of the new science of psychedelics and their relevance to health.

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

Explain the space of transcendent states
Discuss the neurophysiology that these states are accompanied by
List the benefits of these states for mental health
List the benefits of these states for physical health
Describe the new science of psychedelics – what are they? What do they do to the mind and body? What is the evidence for their efficacy in approaches to issues of mental health? — and its relevance for mental and physical health

Instructional Level

Advanced

Licensed mental health professionals employed through Kaiser Permanente and psychological assistants performing under supervision of a licensed psychologist.

This CE program is free to Kaiser Permanente employees.
Instructional Methodology
Lecture
Audio/Visual
On-line Presentation

Continuing Education Information

Kaiser Permanente Northern California Mental Health Training Program is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing professional education for psychologists. The Kaiser Permanente Northern California Mental Health Training Program maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Refund and Attendance Policy

All programs offered on KP Learn for CE credit through the KP Northern California Mental Health Training website are free of charge to Kaiser Permanente Staff and trainees. Once a course is selected in the KP NCAL MH Training Website, the registration process begins, and it will appear in the individuals KP Learn profile for completion within 90 days.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Those who attend the program in full and complete the appropriate evaluation form will receive CE credits. Please note that credit will only be granted to those who attend the entire program. An attestation of attendance will be given once the individual has completed viewing the program, which will then initiate the final steps of completing the evaluation forms to receive a certificate of completion.