A Neufeld Institute Conference | Emotional Health and Well-Being: Towards Flourishing Children and Youth

One of the primary responsibilities of emotion is to serve as a gateway to the brain, protecting our most vital organ from being overwhelmed by signals it cannot process. Yet hypersensitivity is becoming known as the condition in which the basic defensive work of emotion is somehow compromised neurologically, resulting in the brain being overwhelmed by input it cannot interpret. This deficit includes the ability to convert the raw emotional feedback from the body into differentiated feelings, the prerequisite for all emotional health and well-being. The implications for dealing with the hypersensitive are profound and start with making emotional well-being our core objective. With insight and patience, significant progress can be made.

Aggression is one of the primary indicators of emotions in trouble. The trouble with aggression – whether in ourselves or in others – is that it blinds us to the emotional roots of the problem. The result is usually interactions that only serve to exacerbate the underlying emotional problems. In this session, participants will learn how to read aggression, regardless of its form, as the pulse or state of the emotional heart. The implications for treatment are powerful and profound. This material not only applies to the more typical manifestations of aggression like hostility, meanness and violence, but also to suicide and more subtle forms of self-attack. It also has implications for how we view depression, especially when rooted in repressed frustration.

Anxiety is on the rise and afflicts more of us than not, manifesting itself
in a myriad of symptoms including obsessions, compulsions, phobias, panic, physical illness, learning problems, and more. Unfortunately, the emotional roots of anxiety are often eclipsed by the irrational obsessions or compulsive behaviour that become the focus of attention and intervention. In this session, Colleen will provide suggestions for how to read, access, and address the root primal emotion responsible for anxiety, thus fostering emotional health and well-being. Although the focus will be on children and adolescents, because the problem is universal, the material is applicable to all – educators, parents, helping professionals and ourselves.

Nothing could be more stressful than facing separation in formative attachments, regardless of whether these relationships were a source of harm or not. And nothing is harder on emotional health than a stress reaction that gets stuck. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that foster children, adopted children, and children of divorce, are found to manifest more symptoms indicative of emotional un-wellness. The good news is that all children possess the potential to adapt and “bounce back” from emotionally challenging circumstances. In this session, Geneviève will focus on some of the impediments to emotional health in these children and discuss the keys to overcoming them.

Many students are able to overcome adversity, face loss and disappointment, accept not getting their way, and find creative solutions to problems. Yet not all students are so resilient. Many children who are very sensitive or have experienced trauma are even more in need of cultivating resilience from wounding and overstimulation. How can educators and schools cultivate resilience so that students will not only endure challenging experiences, but will be able to gain strength and confidence in their ability to cope with them? Based on years of working with Dr. Neufeld, teaching in schools, counselling families, and parenting, Colleen will provide strategies for educators to use in the classroom and the school setting to cultivate resilience in their students.

In Part II of the Keys to Emotional Health and Well-Being, Dr. Neufeld turns his focus specifically to those whose conduct and behaviour typically tend to mask the underlying emotional problems. Insight is absolutely critical when dealing with those who are more likely to be the cause of trouble than present as troubled. Dr. Neufeld uses the science of emotion to reveal the hidden stories of troubled kids as well as the common denominator that lies at the root of most problem behaviour. With understanding comes the power to make a difference that is truly effective and lasting.

Neuroscience has paved the way to support what Freud once postured – we do have an emotional unconsciousness that operates outside of direct awareness. This is not a mistake, but part of the brain’s sophisticated capacity to defend and inhibit emotional awareness to serve survival needs. How does the brain inhibit vulnerable emotion? How can we create the conditions for the defences to come down? How can we become conscious of defences operating when they are meant to blind us in the first place? Developmental science provides answers to these puzzling emotional questions.

The official book launch for Deborah MacNamara’s new children’s book, The Sorry Plane, will take place at the Emotional Health & Well-Being: Towards Flourishing Children and Youth conference.

The Sorry Plane is a playful introduction for kids and their caregivers to the importance of understanding and respecting our feelings. It highlights how a good sorry is one that you mean from the heart and how adults can preserve a child‘s caring spirit. 

This session provides an opportunity for participants to interact with Dr. Neufeld and Dr. MacNamara around the material presented in their morning keynotes.

If emotional health and well-being is at the heart of what really matters, it also follows that emotion should be the primary focus of healing and recovery. As a seasoned therapist and master of the attachment- based developmental approach, Colleen uses her theoretical lenses and professional experience to distill therapy to its essence, revealing the natural healing processes that can be harnessed both inside and outside the office. This session is suitable for all who want to make sense of the therapeutic process or who seek to be natural instruments of healing in whatever role they serve in society – parents, teachers or helping professionals. This session is also suitable for reflecting upon one’s own journey towards emotional health and well-being.

Ceremony has always been part of our First People’s pathway to emotional health and well-being. Ritual and remedy were woven together into a fabric of everyday culture. Only lately have some of these rituals become the subject of research in the scientific community. Denise has a unique vantage point as a member of the Squamish Nation, a native participant in ancient healing rituals, and a recognized western-based healer among her people. It is from this place that Denise will apply Neufeld’s attachment theory and fresh understandings of emotion to shed new light on some of the more common healing rituals that have been depended upon for millennia.

When emotions stop moving, we start to see the signs of problem behaviour. Expression of emotion is the first step in emotional development, and yet many children, adolescents and adults can get stuck here. We all need safe places to express the emotions that are stirred up within us, as well as release the build-up of emotional energy. The challenge is finding those safe places. In this session, we will explore natural playgrounds for emotion to come out and play, and how we might facilitate this process – for our children, our adolescents and ourselves.

Sometimes finding out what is going on inside of our brain and our body helps us to better understand and accept our somewhat messy psychological processes. This session will introduce participants to the neuroscience of emotional health, including resilience and adaptation. Why must the brain move us from Mad to Sad? How does the brain do this? What role do bio- chemicals play in whether we become defended or truly resilient? Then we will look at how we can create the space in our interactions with our children so that we can help them to become more deeply resilient. When we support the work of the brain, it can do the work it was meant to do.

Feelings of futility – in all their various manifestations – play a pivotal role in the story of emotional health and well-being. Even happiness, the most elusive of emotions, seems too often to lie on the other side of tears that have not yet been shed. Impediments to tears, however, abound in a tear-phobic society. Neufeld Institute Faculty will share some stories that highlight the role of tears in our quest for wellness.

In many ways, empathy could be considered a bellwether of emotional health and well-being. When emotions are in trouble, empathy will be in trouble as well. On the other hand, if our emotions are working as they should, empathy will be one of the ultimate fruits. When lacking insight regarding the emotional roots of empathy, we mistakenly think that empathy can be taught – a common misconception in both schools and homes today. Fostering the natural roots of empathy in our children and our youth will not only bring lasting results but will generalize across all aspects of their lives, including their future parenthood.

This is a rare chance to see the engaging Maria LeRose do what she does best – get to the heart of the matter in her interviews with her subjects. She will be talking to participants and attending sessions throughout the conference in preparation for this panel. Maria will facilitate dialogue between the participants and the presenters, as well between the presenters themselves, all in the quest of shedding more light on the secrets of emotional health and well-being.

Restlessness is an epidemic among today’s children and youth. This takes on an even greater significance when we realize that restfulness is key to emotional health and well-being. Restlessness is also a typical signature symptom of many alarm problems, the most obvious being anxiety. When anxiety is chronic, rest is incredibly elusive despite being pivotal to healing and recovery. In this session, Dr. Neufeld explores the essence of the rest response and provides suggestions for how to bring the rest that is needed to those who are most in need of it.

We cannot make headway on the bullying problem until we make sense of the emotional roots that drive it. Our challenge has been that prevailing approaches to bullying assume it is the result of learned behaviour or failed social skills acquisition, eclipsing the role of emotion altogether. To make sense of the bully is to deeply understand the vulnerability inherent to the human condition and to realize that no one is immune from this insidious dynamic. There is a way to render the bully fully human and humane again, but it begins by first understanding the dynamics of attachment and emotional vulnerability. Once we understand what is really going on inside the bully, we will be in a better position to put into place interventions.

When students in schools have significant emotional needs, we often find it a challenge to help them, especially with limited time and resources. Working with schools in Quebec and Alberta, we have successfully implemented safe spaces where these children can express their emotions and come to their tears. Safe Eruption Rooms (Emotions Rooms) were created to allow students who have frequent explosions a safe space in which to do so, accompanied by an adult who can welcome their frustration and tears. Nurturing Support Centres are locales within a school that allow those students who are unable to function in the regular classroom at certain times of the day to remain in school under the supervision of a caring adult.

These two esteemed attributes are often touted as evidence of emotional health and well-being. Dr. Neufeld will provide an explanation of why these attributes are missing in so many children as well as provide suggestions for how to cultivate these highly-prized traits in our children, our students, and even in ourselves. He will also provide insights as to how curiosity can be an antidote to attention problems of any kind, and in some cases, even serve to help children grow out of them.

Adolescents are faced with an explosion of awareness in emotion and thought. This alone can put them in a very vulnerable place, with temptations to escape at every turn. While a certain level of defence or armour is needed to survive in today’s often wounding world, when the defences become stuck, emotional health and true maturation are at risk. Tamara will discuss what emotional health looks like in adolescence and what we can do as caring adults to step in to foster their well-being.

Connection is foundational to emotional health and well-being. Yet establishing and maintaining good connection is not always easy, especially in today’s society where culture is no longer supportive of the relationships a child needs. Deborah uncovers the surprising role of play in both cultivating and preserving vital relationships and provides some very practical and easy-to-implement suggestions on how to harness the power of play for this purpose.