Webinars and Workshops

We have had the opportunity to listen to and take part in so many wonderful webinars and workshops this session! I’d like to give a huge shoutout to our Webinar Management Department. It is because of their hard work that we have been able to learn so much from these events. Since it’s the end of the session, we are going to give a little recap on all of the webinars and workshops we have had!

Correctional Psychologist Webinar: 

The first webinar we had to kick off the session was one with Christopher Morley, a

correctional psychologist. He enlightened us on what he does, his experiences in his

profession, and things he would like to share with others that he has learned through

his work. Mr. Morley really believes in the idea that although criminals may not be able

to go back in time and change their past, they have the control to make different

choices in the future. We were also able to learn about the evolution of correctional

practices and what they are like today. Finally, he shared his knowledge on community

corrections and how it works to decrease recidivism.

Sleep Workshop: 

         Arya led a workshop, one of the first of the session, all about sleep. She

spoke about how essential sleep is and how without it, we would not be able

to perform the functions we need to in order to survive. Details on the sleep

cycle, specifically REM sleep were explained, and the dangers of not sleeping

enough and oversleeping were laid out. At the end, we were even able to share

a little bit about some of the strangest dreams we have had and let me say, some

of them were very unexpected!

Psychology Activity Event: 

Cadance hosted an incredibly fun and educational psychology activity event! We contemplated

and debated moral dilemmas, such as the Trolley Problem. In the Trolley Problem, you must

decide whether you would rather sacrifice one to save many and it be your fault or let fate take

its course and let a group of people die. Competing in the Kahoot at the end was a perfect way

to end off the night and learn a few new fun facts. This was a great way to get to know a little bit

more about each other and how our minds work and put our knowledge to the test while still

having a fun time.

Psychology of Bias Workshop: 

            Heidi hosted another workshop we had this session, which was on the topic of bias

and the psychology behind it. She went over what bias actually is and how it affects the

decisions we make daily. We even learned about a study that surveyed how people feel

about misinformation and bias on the internet related to politics. Many believe that

technology allows people to be manipulated and that the internet has led to more division.

However, some reported that they trusted political news from social media, which can be

a dangerous thing. We saw just how easily we can be fooled by misinformation when we

participated in Fakey! To conclude the workshop, Heidi gave us some tips to avoid being

fooled, such as doing your own research.

Music Therapy Workshop: 

Sally led a very interesting workshop on music therapy! She talked about the different kinds of music therapy, which are active and receptive. Additionally, we learned about the benefits to playing and listening to music and how music therapy can be used to help people with different conditions. Participation was a big part of this workshop, as we were able to discuss some of our favorite music and play Kahoot!

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Neurotech and Psychology Webinar: 

              The second and final webinar of the session was one on neurotechnology and psychology. We heard from Ryan Landau, a professional in the field, about his experiences. He discussed how he integrates psychological techniques for NeuroEmpowerment™, using neurofeedback sessions. His program is designed to quiet pain and the mind, help you sleep better, and allow you to make peace with concerns you have over your past. One of the main points he talked about was how the mind and body influence each other, even though they are separate entities. Our thoughts and feelings have an impact on our physiology and vice versa. This webinar was very interesting, especially for those interested in pursuing a career in this field!

Department Progress This Session

Check out what our departments are working on by visiting our-

Website - Brainwave 

Instagram - @brainwavepsych Brainwave Teen Psychology (@brainwavepsych)

Spotify - BrainTalks 

Linkedin - Brainwave Teen Psychology 

Social Media- This session Social Media has been focused on spreading information about mental health issues as well as spreading information about upcoming events at Brainwave. Our webinars, workshops, and podcast episodes are all added to our instagram so that our followers can stay as updated as possible with what we are working on here at Brainwave!

Graphic Design- The Graphic design team handles everything that goes on our instagram, as well as what our podcast covers look like. The team works on a schedule basis and this session mainly uses Canva. As the new sessions arrive, the director, Ceciline, is planning on holding mentoring sessions on using platforms in order to improve graphics made on applications such as Canva.

Communications- The Communications team has been able to come a long way in the past few months. The team has been working on weekly Blog Posts, which will shortly be added to our website, as well as our podcast episodes. Our Blog Posts have all the information you need to know about Brainwave in the week prior, just in case you missed something and want to keep up with all we have to offer. Our new programs such as college prep are detailed in these posts and we also introduced a “Spotlight” which focuses on a new department every week and talks about everything that the team is working on at the moment. The Braintalks Podcast is officially on Spotify and the episodes are released every Tuesday. Keep an eye out for our next episode!

Educational Research In Mental Health- This session, ERMH mainly has been working on articles and each intern makes three articles per session. Along with the articles, they also work on a long-term research project - this session's project was called, "Surroundings Research Project." Each day, all interns had to take a picture of something that made them happy, then write about it. Currently, a group of five interns are writing a research paper on it, called "The Effect of Photography on Happiness".

Diversity and Inclusion- Diversity and Inclusion has been at Brainwave for a shorter amount of time than other departments but nonetheless, it is sad to see them leave Brainwave again for the upcoming fall session. Although we will not be having a Diversity and Inclusion department, we will be introducing electives which will be optional for interns and it is a way to engage with Brainwave in other ways such as writing a feature on a Communications Blog Post (like this post!), hosting an inclusion event, and many more. This session the department has hosted numerous inclusion events such as jeopardy, a movie marathon, and gartic phone! As we say goodbye to the department, we are excited to have our very own Yasmeen Abunasrah as the new Director of Electives!

Webinar Management- Throughout Session 2, Webinar Management has been contacting professionals to be guest speakers at Brainwave. Brainwave was able to host a webinar with Ryan Landau who is a licensed mental health counselor with expertise in neuroscience, psychology, and mind-body health/wellness. Additionally, interns have created informational workshops on various mental health and psychology topics along with an activity or discussion to go along. The topics that interns chose were “The Psychology of Bias”, “Sleep and the Brain”, and “Music Therapy”. These will be uploaded to the website as well! 

Session Feedback

Communications

“ I loved being able to spend the summer as an intern at Brainwave and am so thankful for all the wonderful people that made it possible! As part of the communications team I was able to be a part of a podcast for the first time and it was such an amazing experience that I am grateful I was able to have :)” -Joanne Kim

Diversity and Inclusion

“I really loved my time at Brainwave and getting to know so many new people! I will definitely miss our inclusion events every week and my time with my department members! I’m so grateful for this opportunity and I will miss it so much <3” -Shaila Lalani

“Many people see work as a chore, but I’ve never felt that here. That’s because I get to do work that I enjoy with people I enjoy working with. Through the assignments I was given, I have learned valuable research skills that I will take with me. The staff always make sure that this is a fun and comfortable environment for everyone, and I have really felt that in my time here. I am also very appreciative of the many opportunities to take advantage of, like the free college prep program. One of my goals as a summer intern was to learn more about psychology and mental health to determine if this was something I could see myself doing in the future, as I am a rising senior who will be applying for college soon. I have learned enough here through webinars, articles, and projects to successfully say that I can definitely see myself in that field. I will miss everyone at brainwave and am thankful for my time here <3” -Taina S

Educational Research in Mental Health

“Was a fun, intellectual invigorating a experience that taught me a lot of how the mind works” -Marcos Moran

“Brainwave is not just an internship or a workplace. It’s a family. Throughout my time here at brainwave, I’ve met so many amazing people who are all unique in their own way. I’ve learned a lot from them during this internship. The ERMH department allows us full freedom about the articles we write and I really think that’s amazing because we get to write what’s interesting to us. Overall, I loved working at Brainwave and am planning to return in the winter session.” -Lalita 

Graphic Design

“My time at Brainwave has been nothing but positive! It is such a welcoming, healthy, and fun community. I’m never overwhelmed with work and I never dislike doing it. This is such a fun volunteer organization that is doing good for the community, and a 10/10 experience.”-Anjalee Dhanraj

Webinar Management

“I had a great time at Brainwave! This experience was great and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people!”- Sally Nyugen

““Brainwave was outstanding on many fronts, but what I wasn’t anticipating was how it had created an online community that felt like a new group of friends. As we all know, being online can sometimes be difficult (in terms of being connected) but the head admin made the interns feel included in the whole process!” -Heidi Manes

College Prep Program

The College Prep Program is Brainwave's newest program which is designed for rising juniors and seniors. It is designed to provide professional consulting to high school students, so that they are more prepared for college. Since the pressure of college is starting to hit them, we will pair them with a college counselor who will have weekly meetings with them where students can expect to receive advice on college admissions, time management, stress management, and much more! We currently have three counselors, and we are hoping to hire more as the program expands. In September the program will be available to the general public and we have begun advertising with the help of our graphic design and social media team!

Summer Intern Presentations

           At Brainwave we had the opportunity to watch different groups of summer interns make their presentations that they worked together on. These presentations were each about minorities and mental health, which is Brainwave’s main focus this month. Each group had a different minority group that they presented on. The minority communities that were focused on were Black, Latinx, AAPI, and Native American communities. A main talking point in each of these presentations was that we need to normalize mental health concerns and increase access to mental healthcare. In addition to prompting important conversations about minorities and mental health, this project allowed summer interns to team build. We were able to work with interns from other departments, who may not have otherwise had the opportunity to get to know. All in all, this project served multiple important purposes.

End Of Session Presentations

Brainwave had an end of session series of presentations where we discussed minorities in mental health to a further extent. In this presentation, each department worked on a slide presentation that included how 2 specific mental illnesses affected different minority groups. These presentations included research from clinical trials, statistics, as well as responses to a video on how clinical trials have been shown to neglect minorities in the past. These presentations focused on different mental health disorders such as pica, PTSD, depression, substance abuse, and more. Our Head Administration also participated in our project, giving us a thoughtful presentation on how in clinical trials, minorities are often overlooked and not accounted for. In addition to our presentations, at the end of each department’s project, we had discussion questions to fuel interaction between our departments as well as an overall sense of understanding as a way to conclude the presentation.

Webinar management: Our webinar department got together to present their take on the importance of minority healthcare. They spoke about clinical trials and the minimal participation throughout them. They stated that according to recent research, about 30% of participants in clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health are people of color (NIH). Currently, 15% of minority participants are African Americans. Black transgender women frequently face the greatest socioeconomic disadvantages when it comes to access to healthcare. Due to the severe prejudice they face and the fact that they are frequently the targets of killings, Black transgender women have declining mental health. Intellectual functioning is impacted by issues with general mental abilities that are associated with intellectual impairment (such as learning, problem-solving, and judgment).

Social Media: The presentation from the social media section focused on prejudice against Black and Hispanic people who have ADHD and autism. They also talked about potential course of action and the impact of archives on this discrimination.

Diversity and Inclusion: This department, and not to flatter myself and be bias, but my favorite department, focused on bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. For both disorders, they discussed the stats (for example GAD affects 6.8 million adults in the U.S., but only 43% of those adults are receiving treatment) and treatment (Native/Indigenous people with anxiety disorders are more likely to seek help from a spiritual or traditional healer than medical sources) for both. As well as give articles, summaries for each one, and important findings they found from each one. 

Head Administration: I'm pretty sure all of our interns had the same reaction to this one…FINALLY, head admin is obviously doing/a presentation. But, to summarize they focused on PTSD and PICA for their department presentation. For both disorders they talked about at least two minority groups, treatments, and what we can do to help these causes. They stated that according to a recent Northwestern Medicine study that focused on the South Side area of Oakland, 29% of the study's 72 African-American participants have the disease, while another 7% showed a significant number of symptoms consistent with PTSD. They also gave at least two article summaries that gave feedback on the disorders on the minority groups they were looking at. 

Interns presentation: 

Due to the diverse community Brainwave provides, our session interns had the opportunity to find others that had the same nationality as them and the opportunity to create a presentation just about their ethnic groups. This not only gave them the opportunity to meet new people, but also gave them the ability to research more about their groups to learn things that they didnt know before: 

Native Americans: They discussed the difficulties faced by Native Americans in dealing with mental health concerns in the community. Given the long distances they must travel and the frequent lack of funds, many Indigenous tribe members seek spiritual healers inside their own communities as opposed to seeking professional care and assistance. This is concerning because, among minorities, Native Americans have the greatest prevalence of mental health problems in youth, including depression and suicide. This is because of their previous trauma, which involved being uprooted. Additionally, how these Native Americans continue to make efforts to resurrect their customs and faiths.

Black Americans: In the group presentation on Black Americans, issues from the past and the present were covered in relation to Black Americans and mental health care. The talk covered some of the earliest legal restrictions on psychiatry and psychology, dating back to Jim Crow. With the advent of Jim Crow came propaganda and prejudice based on altered diagnostic rates for Black Americans, giving a false stereotype of the IQ and mannerisms of the ethnic minority. The discussion of the Affordable Care Act and the systemic problems that have caused a gap in the coverage of health care was then quickly moved forward in the presentation. The presentation helped people realize how pervasive racism and intolerance are in the United States today.

Latin Americans: This group of interns discussed mental health in Latino populations. We looked into how Latinos' ethnic and cultural backgrounds may impact their mental health. We gathered data on typical mental health issues, typical treatment impediments, how family influences mental health, and how stereotypes contribute to mental health problems. I gained a lot of knowledge for this project from my research as well as from interacting and cooperating with other interns.

AAPI: Our interns were able to discuss media representation, the model minority myth, and cultural misrepresentation for the AAPI Presentation. For two key reasons, they believed it was a terrific approach for them to hear from many AAPI persons. Through their research they were able to recognize how similar their lives were, for one. They conducted a great deal of research for their discussion of the model minority myth, which was motivated by their personal experiences with it. Therefore, it was really intriguing to hear other participants in the debate explain their own experiences. They also continued to discuss personal experiences of their own with regards to their topic.