The Conference

Well, I went to 2 full days of conferences. Yesterday, I went to the sessions on:
1) Borderline Personality Disorder
2) "Drafting" or in laymans terms - Not Burning Out
3) Sensory Integration Disorder

Todays conferences were:
4) Early Onset Schizophrenia in Childhood & Adolescents
5) ADHD Co-morbid with Bipolar Disorder
6) Psychopharmatherapy & Bipolar disorder
7) The Black Box: Suicides & Antidepressants

Tomorrow there are 2 more sessions, but we are expected to get 12 inches (yes, I said 12) of snow in our area starting tonight and going through tomorrow. I think I might just be staying home.

Session #1 was really good. It was 3 hours long, but didn't seem like it. I was actually able to take away some different techniques that I can use with the kids I work with. And the stories were sad, wonderful, and inspring all at the same time. I totally could think off all the kids that I work with that are borderline. They certainly are ones that are challenging.

Session #2 was right after lunch and I just didn't want to sit through, but I did and I did take away some words of wisdom. This guy (Nick Mezacapa, who is now a priest, after years of being a teacher and surviing prostate cancer and holding one of his children in his arms as she died) said that he had a short list about life:
1) Life is short, do it now. (He said he never gave last rites to anyone who said they wished they had bought one more Porche, but lots who said they had wished they followed their dreams.)
2) Keep it simple. (When life gets to complicated, you lose sight of what you are really after because you are too distracted by everything else.)
3) Play. (Have fun and play. Life is worth enjoying if you are having fun. And then he proceeded to make us all get up and dance for an hour.)
4) There was a 4th thing, but for the life of me. I can't remember it right now.

Session #3 sucked so bad. This person obviously had never presented to a group of people before. Her affect was very flat (I was beginning to make my own diagnosis of her) and she was BORING! I wanted to poke out my eyes to keep things interesting.

Session #4 was pretty good. I have a kid I work with whoh is schizophrenic, but is in the recovery phase. But there is another kid that is in the premodoral stage and they are considering schizophrenia as his diagnosis. So it was interesting to here it talked about and think about those kids.

Session #5 was kinda boring. It was just ok. I didn't really learn anything I didn't know.

Sessions #6 & #7 were both by the same guy , Joel Oberstar, who turned out to be someone I went to undergraduate school with (he graduated 1 year ahead of me.) It was really informative for me, as I need to learn more about psychopharmatherapy. I learned quite a bit from this one. He presented it in a down-to-earth manner, which was nice. As by the end of the day I was sick of listening to big words.

I also liked all the booths. I was able to learn about all these placements my kids may have gone to, might go to, or maybe will never go to.