Lecture 109: Systemic Approach and Our Mental Health: The Power of Family Emotional System

 

When: Thursday November 14, 2019 – 7:30 PM

Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanities Building (HU), Conference Room 009 
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Speaker: Dr. Hassan Karimi, Ph.D. LMFT
Language: Farsi

Synopsis:

Human history shows four developmental stages of therapy for mental health problems, including: magical, medical, psychological, and systemic approaches. Each approach offers specific interventions due to the specific definition of psychopathology. Based on Cybernetic Epistemology and General Systems Theory, family therapy emerged in 1950s that was a paradigmatic shift in the field of mental health. Such a shift invited professionals to move from Linear thinking/causality to Circular thinking/causality: that is, the focus of the study moved from intrapsychic concepts to ongoing relational patterns and contextual factors within and around the family system. However, it has not yet become the dominant approach in the field due to some reasons that will be addressed in this lecture. We will discuss systemic family therapy, its principles, and a few clinical concepts: family emotional system and tendency to linear thinking, Multigenerational family emotional process-transitional mechanisms-and genetic factors, triangles and symptom development. Then we will compare it to psychiatric and psychologic explanations of psychopathology. This lecture includes some clinical case examples to elaborate diagnostic and therapeutic functions of systemic approach. Finally, we will discuss systemic epistemology as an approach for multidisciplinary research. This talk also helps us to improve our knowledge about relational-health in marriage and family, so you are welcome to bring your significant others.

 

About the Speaker:

AAMFT Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor
Hassan Karimi Ph.D. is a Clinical Fellow of American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). He has teaching experience at Ferdowsi University, Virginia Tech U., Iona College, and currently at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Karimi’s research interests include common mechanisms of change in successful therapies, cultural issues in family therapy, childhood adversities and family relationships. He has co-authored a book chapter and articles in the field of marriage and family therapy.
Dr. Karimi has 23 years of clinical experience in mental health field both in Iran and the US. He practiced as a clinical psychologist in Iran. Later, he got his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He did his Ph.D. internship at Mental Research Institute (MRI) which is the birthplace for Family/Systemic Therapies in mental health field. Dr. Karimi is a licensed therapist in Virginia, New York, and Maryland. He provides in-person and online therapy services. He also got the Approved Supervisor Designation from AAMFT that qualifies him to train and supervise therapists for advance clinical practice. He is an online volunteer supervisor to a few clinics in Iran too. Dr. Karimi recently founded a Family Therapy Institute in Virginia, where he is looking forward to clinical and research collaboration with medical colleagues to explore the interaction between family emotional system and medical symptoms/diseases.

 

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

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Lecture 108: Saadi, Humanism and the Age of Decadence

When: Thursday August 22, 2019 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanities Building (HU), Conference Room 009 
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Speaker: Dr. Mohammad Navid Bazargan
Language: Farsi

Synopsis:

Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest figures in classical Persian literature. But what  makes him stand out among all of his peers?  His Splendid quality of writings in different genre? His eloquence? Or depth of his social and moral thoughts?

Iran, had experienced one of the most compulsive period of its history in 12 and 13th Century. Still involving with Northern savaged tribes invasions, the country encountered crusade war and Moghuls ambush. Saadi as a prominent Persian poet whose works are the explicit reflection of his era was heavily influenced by this human violence and savagery. This lecture would try to cast a light on some of his works which could articulate this influence through his characteristics and his unique humanistic discourse in that violent era.

About the Speaker:

As an Assistant Professor of Persian Literature Dr. Bazargan taught at Azad University for more than ten years. He is also a member of the academic board of the Great Encyclopedia of Islam since 2004. He has contributed entries for Encyclopedia of Persian language and Literature and was the senior editor of Journal of Culture and Literature in Azad University. During the 2003-2004 academic year, he was at Harvard University with a Research fellowship grant at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Bazargan came to the US in 2013 as a visiting scholar of California State University of Northridge in the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program. In September 2015 he joined the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies as a Visiting assistant professor in Persian studies.

 

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

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Lecture 107: Introduction to Genetics and Genomics

When: Thursday April 11, 2019 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanities Building (HU), Conference Room 009
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Speaker: Dr. Babak Behnam
Language: Farsi

Synopsis:

Genetics looks at specific genes, how they relate, react with each other, and their association with particular pathologic phenotypes (diseases), while genomics refers to the study of individual entire genotype (genetic makeup). Nowadays scientists, doctors, and patients are able to have a genetic test with much DNA information for a number of illnesses. Genomic medicine investigates genes (coded by DNA), their linkages to our health, and the complex but individual biological details for diagnosis and effective treatment. Genomic medicine contribute to diagnosis, prenatal Screening (during pregnancy), inheritance prediction in cases of a family history of serious genetic disorders, and in predisposition/assessing risk (susceptibility) to complex genetic (polygenic) disorders based on individual phenotype. So, it makes a significant difference in four different levels: personal, doctors, national, and world-wide scales. In National level, strategies to care for rising trends and particular programs (e.g. NBS) are developed. On a world-wide scale, projects like OMIM or Genetics Home References, means that everybody with rare syndromes can get the answers to their questions. Although scientists approach genetically for only particular disorders (to avoid facing to big data), genomic medicine is evolving to find a chemical or genetic bottleneck for conditions such as schizophrenia and asthma.

About the Speaker:

Babak Behnam did a medical (MD) degree at Iran University of Medical Sciences (1997), followed by a MSc in Molecular Medicine in Sheffield University, and a PhD in Human Genetics at University College London (2005). Then he awarded a NIH-based (NRSA) postdoctoral fellowship in medical genetics at U Michigan and moved to United States. Also he did some translational neuroscience research as adjunct faculty at University of Central Florida (2007-2009). Then he joined back to IUMS and served as a faculty member, clinical geneticist, and director of diagnostic genetic laboratory at dept. Medical Genetics Children Hospital (2009-2015). In 2016, he came back to the US and did an additional board-accredited fellowship in Clinical Biochemical Genetics at NIH. At the same time and in parallel, he has done some translational research in Undiagnosed Disease Program (UDP) at NHGRI, and published about 25 scientific articles including some reports of Iranian patients with rare genetic diseases as well as the patients registered in UDP. As a scientist in clinical and laboratory medicine, and also based on his medical education, his main interest is in genomic medicine and molecular mechanisms of the diseases. He has contribution and authorship in more than 60 scientific papers.

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

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