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It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.” — Rollo May
Do you regularly feel stressed-out, overworked, and overwhelmed?
Like you’re always in a rush, trying to keep on top of things, while at the same time feeling that your life is out of control?
If so, you’re not alone.
Burnout is a state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion, affecting 57% of the UK population. If it’s not managed properly, it can lead to feelings of detachment, cynicism, and ineffectiveness – many of the symptoms associated with clinical depression. Recent years have seen sharp increases in those experiencing it, with one survey reporting a 9% increase in 2021, compared with pre-Covid numbers in 2019.
Therefore, if we want to avoid this fate, we need to rethink how we manage the stressors of modern life. This is why, for this event, we’ve brought together three world-leading experts who will share with you:
If you have the nagging suspicion that there’s a better way of being in this world than the frantic, ‘always-on’, and stimulation-seeking norms of our society, then this event is for you.
Repeated and chronic exposure to large volumes of difficult stories can erode our sense of empathy for others. We can become hardened and desensitized to suffering – or conversely, we can become swallowed up by empathic strain. Since the demand often outweighs what we can offer, we may also find ourselves experiencing moral distress when we cannot help everyone who turns to us. What is the impact of this on our physical and emotional well-being?
How can we stay well while providing support to others?
In this presentation, based on her popular Tedx talk, Françoise Mathieu will explore:
— Levels of Exposure: Assess what elements are risk factors for you
— Where Are You Now? Learn how to identify and recognize warning signs in yourself and others
— Assess your current strategies at home and at work
— Make a plan: Steps to address your vulnerabilities
Françoise Mathieu is the Executive Director of TEND, whose aim is to offer consulting and training to professionals on topics related to secondary trauma, empathic strain, burnout, self-care, wellness, and organizational health. Françoise is a Registered Psychotherapist and a subject matter expert on topics related to empathic strain and secondary trauma. Before becoming a specialist on stress and trauma, Françoise worked as a mental health provider doing both crisis management and employee support to military personnel, medical students, residents, law enforcement, 911 communicators and other community mental health professionals in need of psychological support.
Françoise has worked with the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Police, Cirque du Soleil, the Chief Coroner’s Office and many other organizations that do high stress exposed work. Françoise is a TedX speaker and is one of the founding members of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Consortium. She is also the author of “The Compassion Fatigue Workbook” which was published by Routledge in 2012 as well as several articles and publications.
Videos/Podcast:
‘To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world.’ (Oscar Wilde)
More than ever before, we live in a culture that excoriates inactivity and demonizes idleness. Work, connectivity and a constant flow of information are the cultural norms, and a permanent busyness pervades even our quietest moments. Little wonder so many of us are burning out. In a culture that tacitly coerces us into blind activity, the art of doing nothing is disappearing. Inactivity can induce lethargy and indifference, but is also a condition of imaginative freedom and creativity.
In this session, you’ll learn about the dangers of our dysfunctional relationship with productivity, why we have to stop, and how a healthy amount of ‘doing nothing’ can lead to heightened levels of creativity, wellbeing, and a richer, more fulfilling existence.
Prof. Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst in private practice, and Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles on modern literature, psychoanalysis and cultural theory. His books include ‘How to Read Freud’, ‘The Private Life’, ‘Not Working’ and ‘How to Live. What to Do’. He has written for Guardian, New Statesman and TLS and appeared on BBC Radio 4. He lives in London.
All around us people are looking at their phones too much, eating too much, drinking too much. Our world is addicted to fleeting distracting pleasures that get us nowhere. This talk will aim to provide a clear way back to a balanced life. It’s about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most importantly, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting…. The increased numbers, variety and potency are staggering.
The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such, we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. In this session, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, will explore the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain…and what to do about it. You’ll learn how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check, and how combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery can help you find balance.
Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine.
Dr. Lembke was one of the first in the medical community to sound the alarm regarding opioid overprescribing and the opioid epidemic. In 2016, she published her best-selling book on the prescription drug epidemic, “Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). Her book was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018). Dr Lembke’s latest book: “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence” is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller which explores how to combine the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery to find balance in an overindulgent era.
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