It's been some time since we've reported on our programs and our progress here at Greenpoint Psych and theattentiondoctor.com. In September we began three new Mindfulness/Hypnotherapy groups, each of which met ten times and which ended in mid November. Throughout the fall folks who had participated in one of the four groups that were held last winter/spring continued to meet on an every other week basis, culminating in a workshop on November 7th that introduced three touch based therapies (reflexology, reiki, and cranio-sacral therapy) to a dozen members of our group.

     This wednesday evening december 16th we will be holding a meeting that merges together members of all seven groups, four from the winter/spring and three from last fall. This meeting and subsequent meetings and workshops will be drawn from a list of 54 people who have completed our program and  who remain interested in creating a community dedicated to ongoing mutual support and a continued exploration of meditation hypnotherapy and awareness in general, a community that addresses the challenges that face intelligent hyperactive people in our complex modern world.

     At present, in addition to working towards defining and meeting the needs of those who have already completed out unique program, we are considering exactly how we should go about offering our programs and ideas to new folks. We will most likely be offering a new set of groups in late feburary, one in brooklyn and one in manhattan; we think that this time around groups will be eight sessions instead of ten. We are also very interested in beginning to offer our Mindfulness/Hypnotherapy program in a more concentrated manner, over two to three days. We are thinking of this as in intensive group outpatient program, similar from a health insurance perspective to programs that are currently offered to patients immediately upon discharge from inpatient or substance abuse programs. As always; please join our mailing list here at theattentiondoctor.com to keep apprised of our ongoing effrots and offerings.

     For those of you who know us personally in one way or another, you will be aware that it has now been a little more than six months since the passing of Kristin Romano, the gifted and dedicated therapist and admninstrator who was instrumental in creating and implementing our unique programs, and it has also been that long since we had the great good fortune of adding Dr Cynthia Donohue to our program and out practice. Even as members of our growing community have grieved the untimely loss of Ms Roman, many of us have become more and more dedicated to and confident in the value of continuing and expanding the work we have been doing to create and define that most progressive innovative and comprehensive approach to the treatment of adults with ADD available anywhere. Stay tuned.

It has been ten weeks since the untimely passing of our valued colleague Kris Romano. We at The Attention Doctor and Greenpopint Psychiatric are grateful to have known her and worked with her. We are also fortunate to be able to welcome Dr. Cynthia Donahue MSW PhD, who has not only been able to continue working with some of Kris' patients, but who will also be dedicating her coinsiderable skills to our ongoing mission of developing and perfecting the most comprehensive and innovative treatment program for hyperactive adults available in the New York metropolitan area.

Any of you who have been reading these entries over the past year may be aware that by the time of Kris' passing in late May we had completed four ten week mindfulness hypnotherapy groups. The 35 participants who completed the intial program have for the most part stayed in touch through a vibrant email list, and have so far come together three times over the summer to continue working together on moving forward and getting unstuck.

We are now ready to begin the process of forming four new ten week mindfulness hypnotherapy groups that will begin in the week following Labor Day. Groups will begin on wednesday september 9th in our manhattan office, and on Thursday setpmeber 10th in greenpoint. Given sufficient interest, groups will be held in both locations from 430-630 and again from 7-9.

As we did in April, when the last set of groups were formed we will be sending out a mass email to our own modest email list and to the 11,000 member email list of the Greater Brooklyn Health Coalition. In addition, over the next three weekends we will be handing out flyers and 1200 free copies of Getting Unstuck all over McCarren Park, the beating green heart of the wonderful neighborhood that we are so proud and anxious to serve.

For those who may be wondering, a sangha is a Tibetan term for a community of  meditators. Our small band of group veterans are a vital and already almost magical entity. If you have struggled with attentional issues, with procrastination and disorganization, with the management of mood time and task, please click on the group therapy logo and find out about our groups in more detail. Join our mailing list to keep apprised of our progress, and look for us in  McCarren Park

There will be about 50 slots available in these four groups;  most insurance plans will be accepted and we expect that the groups will fill quickly. If you think you might be interested, please contact us by phone or email, and our monstrously efficient exceedingly polite silver throated office manager Steve Steele will get back to you promptly and arrange for a screening evaluation.

     It is with great sadness that I must report the passing of Kristin Romano MSW, my partner in Greenpoint Psychiatric Services and the Greenpoint Group Therapy Program. Over the past five years, as she struggled with a particularly aggressive cervical cancer, she also struggled to create a group practice and a group therapy program dedicated to the treatment of adults with ADD.

     The dozens of individuals who worked with Kristin over the past 3 years are a living testament to how one makes meaning in life, even in the face of relentless illness and tragic loss. Her patients knew about her illness; her elusive ever changing schedules told them that; they knew that she might/would leave them sooner or later. But they took that risk, and to a man and woman I believe that they are glad that they did.

      For those of you who knew her, her patients and colleagues and friends, we will be holding a gathering at the Greenpoint Reformed Church at 136 Milton St. this Thursday evening at 8pm. I will say a few words and anyone else who wants to will be welcome to do the same.

     For any of the rest of you who may be reading this blog, for whatever reason, I will tell you that the work we have done and were doing together continues. The MIndfulness Hypnotherapy Groups that Kristin helped create are in fact the wonderful therapeutic tools that we hoped and dreamed they would be. Watch this space in the coming year, and you will see how we will honor the memory of this fine strong woman. Right now almost 40 people have participated in these groups; a year from now it will be 150, and in two years 300, and every one of those people will owe something to Kristin Romano, a woman who wouldn't stop trying to make meaning right up to the last weeks of her life.

Greenpoint Psych and theattentiondoctor.com are happy to announce, after a shockingly extended almost 15 year pregnancy, the birth and bubbly health of our brand new baby therapy product, “Getting Unstuck” Mindfulness/Hypnotherapy Groups for Adults with ADD.

Long name for a cute little tyke, but I’m happy to say that (s)he seems to be thriving. We have now enrolled 17 “foster parents” to help in guiding our little handful; no doubt it will be just as attentionally challenged as all of its caretakers.

All kidding aside now, we here in Attentionland are incredibly excited to be engaging with a community of hyperactive meditaters dedicated to designing useful group experiences for the adult with ADD.

To our knowledge, our groups are the first ever to attempt to merge the proven benefits of mindfulness based training with the more varied legacies of Neo-Ericksonian and other somatic therapies, let alone the first of its kind to point these two potent traditions at the specific problem of remediating executive functioning deficits in adults with ADD. What makes our groups even more interesting for our members is our emphasis on intra-group coaching that takes place outside the group. Each member is paired with one or two others. At first that pairing is simply used to assist in making the commitment to create a ten minute per day personally crafted meditative/reflective practice. They may or may not serve other coach-like functions later on as the members choose various targets for change above and beyond simply meditating (as if meditation were actually simple; of course it is and it isn’t).

Within a few weeks there should an accompanying article describing in some more detail the techniques we are devising and the ideas behind them. We know the aims of our groups, and we’re in the process of bringing these concepts to the attention of the greater public as we speak.

Our next step is to start two or three more groups, sometime in mid April. More than likely these groups will meet on Wednesday evenings in Manhattan and Friday afternoons, probably one in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.   Although the groups will be open to all, we have it in mind to specifically invite artists, writers, musicians, and entrepreneurs who have ADD. Further details to follow.

What we think is going to really help us get this program off the ground is our new friendship with the folks at the Greater Brooklyn Health Coalition. The Coalition is a powerful force in bringing health care to long underserved areas of this huge diverse borough, and they have a formidable mailing list that is open at minimal costs to their members. In one blow our outreach multiplies tenfold. Great thanks to my partner Kristin Romano, a therapist with me at Greenpoint Pysch for the past years, for her fine work in making this connection and for her handling so many other things without which we never could have reached this moment that we are finding so invigorating.

We are hopeful and confident that soon we will be ready to reach out to professionals who are interested in learning our techniques and to start bringing them in touch with the huge groundswell of interest we expect to receive when the word finally gets around that there does in fact exist an intelligent, measured, comprehensive, affordable, and effective approach to the high-functioning but still somehow malfunctioning adult with ADD.

So that’s what we’re up to. Our First Group is in week 6 and our Second is in week 2 with Groups Three through Five on the drawing board as we speak.

Stay Tuned

Dr. Don

I’m happy to report that our group therapy program is proceeding apace. The first group, which began in our Manhattan offices in mid-January, is now in its fifth week and is proving to be just as interesting and stimulating as I hoped it would be, both for myself and for the participants. The second group is set to begin on Thursday, February 19th at 7pm. There are still a few spots available.

What is really most wonderful about the group we have begun in Manhattan is the camaraderie and the sense of a shared adventure that is developing among the members. Each person, in their own way, is exploring their powers of focus and concentration and beginning to learn how to apply these powers to the task of healing and growth that confront them. This progress in developing shared sense of purpose has made me even more excited about beginning the next group in Brooklyn.

At this moment, my ragtag team and I (there are 8-10 of us, full timers and freelancers both, working on all this behind the scenes, depending on who you count) are taking a little breather and trying to figure out how we are going to continue developing and disseminating our ideas, techniques, and programs. We believe now more than ever that our groups represent the best possible comprehensive program available for adults with ADD, and we are committed to surmounting the daunting logistical/financial/organizational problems that have long discouraged the provision of high-quality mental health care for this huge underserved population.

As always we ask for your help. All of you who have friends and family with ADD, please tell them about our site, about our book, and about our group programs. Please ask them to sign up for our mailing list. The larger our mailing list, the more easily we can continue forming groups and perfecting our techniques.

In the coming weeks, I will be writing a few more articles and blog entries, and our next major push will be to form three separate daytime Mindfulness/Hypnotherapy Groups for artists, for writers, and for musicians sometime in the beginning of April.  

Stay tuned.

Hello All.Thanks so much to everyone who came out on one of the coldest nights in memory to help me and my compatriots celebrate the publication of my book and the commencement of our group therapy program. The music was undeniably terrific from all three bands, the food was excellent, and the atmosphere was warm and inviting. Thanks to Rose Live for a great job, to all the musicians, and to all of you who worked so hard to put on this event.

Please stay tuned to The Attention Doctor for future programs and events. My current fantasy involves the same bands, August, sunshine McCarren Park maybe. I mean, if we can fill the house in the depth of frigid winter... well you get the idea.

Meanwhile, we have begun our first “Adult ADD Meditation and Self Hypnosis Group.” It's now in its third week. The next group begins on Thursday, February 19th in Greenpoint.This group will meet from 7pm-9pm for ten consecutive weeks. If you are interested in any way, please contact Ms. Kristin Romano at Kristinromano@yahoo.com. You can also phone our main office 718.383.3493, ext #1(just leave your name and number and let us know that you are interested in the group).

To all of you who live in northwest Brooklyn, in Greenpoint, in Williamsburg, in Bushwick, and in Bed-Stuy, let me ask you in the most personal way I can to talk to your friends about us. Ask them to sign up on our mailing list. When was the last time you could sign up for a mailing list that might actually be helpful to you and be truly helpful to people that live all around you as well? Pretty win-win for 2009, eh?  

Everyone knows it’s smart to work your dreams. In my dreams, this community comes together and allows me to organize it in pursuit of high quality innovative psychiatric care. I know that we can create a network of communication about our services and programs that will allow me to bring skilled and talented mental health professionals into our nifty little corner of the universe.      

For now, look forward to three unique Meditation/Hypnosis groups beginning in March: Artists with ADD, Musicians with ADD, and Writers with ADD. Contact us now and please stay in touch.

Dr. Don

Once again, lots to report here at The Attention Doctor.

This Thursday evening we are having our musical book party from 6-10:30 at Rose Live on Grand Street in Williamsburg. There will be an open bar from 6-7, free food and music all night, and free copies of Getting Unstuck for the first 350 people who trade us their email addresses. Rather than the chatty little book/cocktail party that one might imagine for an intimate self published effort such as ours, we thought it would be fun to try networking with some of our musical friends, especially since our real goal here is to jump start the group therapy program. If you are lucky enough to be able to attend, you will be hearing the work of three really fine musicians: Jon Hildenstein, William Beaufort, and Tim Nayfield. I can’t thank these guys enough for coming down to help us spread the word into the Greenpoint-Williamburg community about the innovative programs we are working to set up. 

It is therefore all the more lovely to be able to say that last week we began the first “Getting Unstuck” group. We met for the first time on Wednesday evening, eight adults with ADD, many of whom have been treated for or are being treated for depression, most of whom feel stuck in one way or another. We began by exploring a range of meditation hypnosis and awareness exercises. In the coming weeks we will be building on these experiences to create tools for focus, for relaxation, for inner exploration, and for the healing of trauma. 

It is difficult to put across in a blog entry how exciting this is for all of us around here; it’s taken us four and a half years from the completion of the manuscript in June 2004 to bring these ideas and programs to market. Now that we have begun, we are anxious to keep going. 

Our most immediate goal is to set up a second group, this one to be held in our Greenpoint offices on Thursday evenings. Our hope is to have this up and running by mid February, the 19^th or the 26^th if we can. If you are interested in this at all, just prowl around our website a bit and you’ll find more info. 

As soon as we get that group going, our next project will be to run a daytime group for artists, writers, and musicians on Fridays. We are certain that there are large numbers of creative individuals in our community, painters, photographers, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians, and writers of all stripes, who deal with issues of depression and attention on a regular basis. By late spring/early summer, we intend to have started a series of groups that will be specially directed to our unique and vibrant community. 

Over the past few months articles have appeared here about bipolar illness, about anxiety in ADD, and about what you should learn about depression in a psychiatrist’s office. The next article in this series will be about trauma, dissociation, and procrastination in ADD. Look for it soon, and, if you haven’t already, please join our mailing list. Ask your friends to join, too. Only through this kind of e-commerce social networking approach are we able to tackle the usually insurmountable logistical issues that have prevented the routine use of the group setting despite its proven usefulness. Please join with us in developing a community that is large enough and organized enough to create the mental health tools our community requires. 

Thank you very much.

Things are heating up around here. Our books finally arrived and can now be bought right here on our website, as well as on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. On November 3^rd I’ll be speaking at the Manhattan CHADD about my book and about the group therapy program we’ll be launching early next year in a talk entitled Re-Wiring Your Brain: Improving Focus and Functioning in Adults with ADHD and Depression.

In the meantime, I’ve retained Kirsten Ringer, of KLR Literary to help us with marketing, PR and event planning. With any luck you will see us (my daughter Abby and some of her friends) handing out flyers and palm cards at the ING marathon on November 2^nd as it runs through Williamsburg and past our offices on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. We’re also planning a book party somewhere in Williamsburg in mid December. Stay tuned for details.

Last week, my trusty executive factotum, Lee, and I pre-recorded a podcast of my CHADD talk, which is posted here. Keep checking in. I’ll be blogging and posting articles with increasing frequency. Write me with questions or suggestions for topics and I’ll get right back.

As ever, our goal in publicizing Getting Unstuck is the gradual launch of our new, innovative group therapy program. We are looking for 20 -30 individuals who are interested in a skills based experiential introduction to using meditation, self hypnosis and guided visualization to heal the effects of childhood traumas and to release the innate ability of the mind to train the brain.

These groups are insurance reimbursable and will include medication evaluation and maintenance. Each will be co-led by another therapist who will be available to continue the group after the initial ten-week period, if so desired.

I continue to believe that there is a great, unmet public health need for a reproducible therapeutic curriculum that addresses the often intertwined strands of depression, attention and trauma. Both attention and trauma are best addressed when they are understood in terms of the brain’s ever constant self-wiring. Depression and other related neurotransmitter disorders can be seen as metabolic brain illnesses that interfere with our ability to master and guide that wiring process.

Anyone wandering into theattentiondoctor.com of late may have noticed a hiatus in postings. This reflects the difficulty of coordinating editors, designers and printers towards the actual publication and sale on this site of my book Getting Unstuck. We have an official publication date of October 15th, and we hope to have books for sale here by the middle of September.

The State of Psychiatry In America Today

When I think about the state of psychiatry in America, I'm reminded of Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities, which begins "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Never before have we had better, or more specific medicines, and never before have we had so many specific and proven psychotherapies. Yet never before has good psychiatric care been so difficult to obtain for the overwhelming majority of working Americans. There are nowhere near enough psychiatrists, and precious few of the ones we have are trained, or even interested, in providing care that is medical, psychotherapeutic and educational all at the same time. Unfortunately for the patient with complex psychiatric and psychological problems, this is exactly the kind of treatment that is required.

3 Reasons Why People Come

Typically, it is people with treatment-resistant depression who seek help from psychiatrists. They'll go to their general practitioner first, but if that doesn't work, finding a psychiatrist is their next step. In practice, the overwhelming majority of such patients have one or more of three problems: panic, ADD or bipolarism. In my view these are three conditions that scream out for an integrated approach that includes medical, psychotherapeutic and educational components, but few can find it.

This site and my book are part of my wish to address this mismatch between the mental health needs of Americans and the responses of the mental health establishment. As part of this effort, I'm offering a group therapy program that uses an integrated approach to help participants get back to fully enjoying life. We expect to begin this program in mid-January, 2009. If you think this program may be of interest to you, please sign up for our mailing list to keep apprised of details.

In the coming weeks I will write and post articles here, in which I share more details concerning my current thinking about the relationship between depression, ADD, and trauma, and how to approach each of these problems.

Thanks for stopping by.