Neil D. Brown, LCSW, is a master psychotherapist who has worked with families, couples, and individuals for more than thirty years. Deeply steeped in the theory and practice of family therapy, Brown uses a systemic approach that allows him to understand the system, or context, in which problems are both formed and are healed. This approach has revealed a simple yet profound method of empowering parents and their adolescent youth to put an end to destructive control battles for good. Brown is a trainer of parents and mental health professionals. Additionally, Brown works in industry with teams and work groups to increase organizational effectiveness. qy8eajpn
Brown’s first book, Ending the Parent-Teen Control battle is being published this Fall by New Harbinger Publications.
Get A 10% discount on all courses below PLUS ANY COURSES OR PRIVATE PRACTICE MATERIALS (WHETHER BY ME OR NOT) offered through the Zur Institute using the discount code: DRDAVE88
Check out the following Psychology CE Courses based on listening to Shrink Rap Radio interviews, offered through Zur Institute:
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 1 (6 CEUs)
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 2 (7 CEUs)
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 3 (7 CEUs)
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 4 (6 CEUs)
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 5 (7 CEUs)
Jungian Psychotherapy Package of the Five Above (33 CEUs)
Wisdom of The Dream (4 CEUs)
Positive Psychology (6 CEUs)
Pros and Cons of Positive Psychology (5 CEUs)
The Fundamentals of Positive Psychology (7 CEUs)
CERTIFICATE PROGRAM IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (39 CEUs)
Body-Mind: Goodbye to Dualism (6 CEUs)
Brain: Insights from Neuroscience (8 CEUs)
Meditation & Psychotherapy (8 CEUs)
Crisis & Trauma: Identification, Assessment, & Treatment (15 CEUs)
Neuroscience and Healing (8 CEUs)
NEW! Holistic & Nutritional Approaches to Treating Psychological Disorders (5 CEUs)
NEW! Holistic Psychotherapy: Treating The Whole Person (6 CEUs)
or check out the
NEW! Complementary and Alternative Medicine Certificate Course (43 CEUs)
NEW! Ego States Psychotherapy: Engaging the Personality’s Different Parts in Psychotherapy (5 CEUs)
ATTENTION! Get A 10% discount on all courses above PLUS ANY COURSES OR PRIVATE PRACTICE MATERIALS (WHETHER BY ME ME OR NOT) offered through the Zur Institute using the discount code: DRDAVE88
Get our iPhone/Android app!
Get 10% discount on all lectures at The JungPlatform using our discount code: DRDAVE
You can also earn CEU’s by going to another partner website at Ed4Online!
A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
copyright 2016: David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Nice talk with Neil Brown, with a lot of useful gems for just about any kind of interpersonal control battle—a systemic therapy 101, if you will. I was particularly fascinated by this approach in the psych program and it still makes so much sense to me (I especially recall Watzlawick et al’s masterpiece, ”Change”). I can’t see how Brown’s approach would differ from a generic systemic therapeutic model, though. But I guess that’s what’s the book for.
Anyway, something that stood out for me was his stating that teenagers are prone to risky, impulsive behavior because of elevated brain dopamine levels. That doesn’t make sense if we juxtapose it with the biological explanation model of ADHD, where the very same impulsivity is thought to stem from low dopamine (and norepinephrine) levels; when supplemented stimulants, ADHD sufferers often calm down and display reduced impulsivity.
The picture gets even more complicated when considering that drugs that increase dopamine (e.g. anti-Parkinson medicines) can induce manic, uncontrolled, and hedonistic behavior, which would support Brown’s standpoint but weaken the ADD hypothesis.
Someone must be wrong here. I would love to hear an interview with a neurotransmitter expert 🙂
Thanks for your thoughtful comments Oskar! Yes, Watzlawick et al’s masterpiece, ”Change” has been a powerful influence on my work. After reading it, I knew that every case I saw needed to reach for 2nd order change.
My son, Daniel Brown, a neuro-psychologist, promised to answer your questions in that area later today.
Hello,
I am Neil’s son and I happen to be a neuropsychologist. He asked me to respond to this comment in order to offer additional clarification. Indeed, too much or too little of any neurotransmitter can have adverse outcomes. The prevailing theory on ADHD implicates both norepinephrine and particularly dopamine. Specifically, too low of a norepinephrine level is thought to cause attention problems via difficulty filtering what is intended to be focused upon versus all the competing distraction stimuli in a given environment. Too low of a dopamine level is thought to cause impulsiveness via an inhibition ability deficit. The thought w/ dopamine is that sufficient dopamine activity allows people to not feel bad all the time and having too low of a level (this is called being hypo-dopaminergic) causes people to feel bad, so they engage in higher-risk behavior such as drug seeking and other impulsive and compulsive actions than people without ADHD in an effort to produce sufficient feelings of well-being. Serotonin, GABA and other neurotransmitters are also implicated in ADHD, but to a lesser extent. I am not aware of too much dopamine being associated with ADHD, but neurotransmitter activity certainly can get relatively complicated; and, often both too little and too much of a neurotransmitter is thought to be the culprit…but I am not aware of any evidence for this in ADHD.
Yes, too little dopamine is also implicated in Parkinson’s disease, and drugs like L-dopa are used to treat that; however, it takes time to find the optimal dose, which varies for each patient. When patients are on too high of a dose, they can in fact display mania (that can include impulsive behavior), though in this case, it falls more under the umbrella of psychotic symptoms, which again, would be a result of too much dopamine, rather than lack of impulse control due to too little dopamine, as is thought to be the case with ADHD.
I hope this helps. Best,
Dan
Always happy to hear your thoughts, Neil!
Thanks, Neil and Daniel, for your responses! Neil, I’m happy to hear that I was on spot with my Watzlawick notion. Daniel, you should be interviewed by Dr Dave. That was a great walk-through (even though you didn’t directly address the teenagers, but I guess they fall under the hyperdopaminergic umbrella).
I agree with Oskar that Dr. David should interview Daniel Brown, too! That was an excellent explanation. I’ve already sent it to some people I know who have ADHD! Thanks so much
Hi Oskar,
The working theory is the teenagers (or anyone) with ADHD are likely hypo-dopaminergic. I hope that helps.
Dan