3^rd Annual Ortho Summer Symposium

Families and Disabilities
June 23-27

The theme of the 2008 Ortho Summer Symposium focuses on serious illness and disability and its impact on family life. The Symposium features an interdisciplinary slate of nationally and internationally known contributors to the field of family issues related to physical and mental disability. Serious illness and disability can have a devastating impact on family life. Participants will learn concrete skills to address common challenges and dilemmas such as communication issues, maintaining relationships in the face of caregiving demands and threatened loss, compliance problems, intimacy issues, and counteracting relationship imbalances that can emerge. Issues related to serious mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder), physical illness, and disabilities will be discussed, as will practical ways of including the spiritual dimension in resilience-oriented clinical assessment and treatment. The Symposium also will highlight ways that psychotherapy can influence health care and promote healing with chronic illness and other conditions. On Friday, families of persons with illness and disabilities will have an opportunity to share their perspectives on what they would like mental health professionals to know and do. Participants will leave the symposium with new information and a broadened understanding of how to assist families and clients who experience a range of disability.

Monday
"Mastering Family Challenges with Illness and Disability: An Integrative Model"

John S. Rolland, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and founding Co-Director of the Center for Family Health at the University of Chicago. His widely acclaimed family systems illness model provides a psychosocial map to help couples and families navigate the changing landscape in the experience of illness and disability over time. He is the author of Families, Illness, & Disability: An integrative Treatment Approach.

Tuesday
"Spiritual Wellsprings for Resilience: Living and Loving Fully with Disabilities"

Froma Walsh, Ph.D., is the Firestone Professor Emerita of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Family Health at the University of Chicago. She is a leading expert on family resilience and resilience-oriented clinical practice, and her approach integrates multicultural and spiritual resources in healing, wellbeing, and growth.

Wednesday
"The Cutting Edge of Psychotherapy and Health"

Susan H. McDaniel, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical School. She is a psychologist who is nationally and internationally known for her publications on families and health, including Medical Family Therapy, and many professional articles related to behavioral health in primary care and family dynamics and genetic conditions.

Thursday
"Families of People with Serious Mental Illness"

Diane T. Marsh, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, PA. She has many years experience as a therapist, researcher, consultant, and trainer. She is the author or editor of 11 books, including Serious Mental Illness and the Family: The Practitioner's Guide, and A Family-Focused Approach to Serious Mental Illness.

Friday
"What Family Members of People with Disabilities Want Mental Health Professionals to Know and Do"

This session will be organized by Stephany Melton, MSW, Development Manager for the Massachusetts Advocates for Children. MAC is a grassroots advocacy organization for children with disabilities (including mental disabilities).

*Call for Papers: Proposals for 90-minute workshops or poster sessions should be e-mailed to Jan L. Culbertson, Ph.D., at orthocci@gmail.com or mailed to her at Child Study Center, 1100 NE 13th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73117. See www.amerortho.org.