2025 UVU Conference on
Mental Health

Love, Loss, and Laughter: The Three Things That Bring us All Together in the Midst of Losing a Loved One or Being a Therapist During Loss

Desmond Lomax, CMHC, brings a deeply personal and professional perspective to the keynote, "Love, Loss, and Laughter: The Three Things that bring us all together in the Midst of Losing a Loved One or Being a Therapist During Loss." Drawing from his extensive experience as a mental health therapist, his leadership roles, and his own journey through loss—including the tragic loss of his son—Lomax weaves together themes of grief, healing, and the transformative power of human connection. His previous presentations often emphasize the importance of vulnerability, embracing imperfection, and using the energy of loss to foster meaning and purpose rather than allowing it to be destructive. In this keynote, attendees can expect a candid exploration of how love, laughter, and shared vulnerability bind us during the darkest times, offering insights both for those navigating personal grief and for therapists supporting others through loss. Lomax’s storytelling approach, rooted in both lived experience and therapeutic expertise, encourages participants to move beyond resistance, find connection even in pain, and discover tangible pathways toward resilience and hope.

Healing Through Story: Lessons from Around the World on Mental Health and Connection

Join physician and award-winning filmmaker Delaney Ruston, creator of UNLISTED and HIDDEN PICTURES, for a powerful keynote exploring the personal and global dimensions of mental health. Drawing from her work with organizations like NAMI and the World Health Organization, Delaney shares compelling stories and key insights from around the world—highlighting what different cultures can teach us about mental health care, the critical need for access to services, and how systemic barriers often divide families more than the illnesses themselves. Through her unique blend of storytelling and advocacy, she underscores the transformative power of sharing our experiences to dissolve stigma, build connection, and inspire change. This session offers a deeply human perspective on today’s mental health challenges and the pathways forward for individuals, communities, and global systems alike.

From Numbing Out to Showing Up: Healing Through Compassionate Care in ED/SUD Clients

When substance use and eating disorders co-occur, treatment can feel like navigating two storms at once. This dynamic training offers a steady compass. Rooted in Integrated Compassionate Care. This course explores how shame, trauma, and emotional disconnection fuel both disorders and how healing begins with safety, attunement, and trust. Drawing from evidence-based approaches including Internal Family Systems (IFS), mindfulness, EMDR, and polyvagal theory, this training equips clinicians to meet clients in their emotional chaos with clarity and compassion. You’ll leave with practical tools along with a deeper understanding of how to help clients reconnect with their bodies, regulate overwhelming emotion, and move toward sustainable recovery.

Beyond Talk Therapy: Exploring the Healing Potential of Ketamine Assisted Therapy

Ketamine-assisted therapy is rapidly emerging as a powerful tool in mental health treatment—but how do we use it safely, ethically, and effectively? This introductory training is designed for therapists, counselors, and mental health professionals who want to understand the clinical use of ketamine.

Trauma and Holistic Therapist Ethics: The Ethical Essentials of Trauma, Integrative Health, and Sensory Processing Sensitivity

Developing accurate diagnoses and integrative treatment is vital for ethical practice. Most clients presenting with anxiety, depression, substance use, and compulsive behaviors have experienced trauma or chronic distress. Other factors include unidentified medical conditions and sensory processing sensitivity. This presentation provides ethics considerations for effective assessment and treatment.

Sexual Health Without Shame: Supporting Clients at the Intersection of Faith and Sexuality

Religion can provide meaningful structure in clients’ lives, but it may also lead to sexual shame when beliefs about purity and morality clash with lived experience. In this workshop, clinicians will learn to recognize how religious and cultural narratives shape clients’ sexual self-concept and contribute to distress. Drawing on Doug Braun-Harvey’s six principles of sexual health, we’ll explore a values-based, nonjudgmental approach to supporting clients in developing a healthy, authentic relationship with their sexuality. Clinicians will gain practical tools to help clients navigate this complex intersection with greater clarity, compassion, and alignment with their personal and spiritual values.

Rewiring the Roots: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Treating Compulsive Sexual Behavior

Traditional treatments for addictive behavior often emphasize behavior management, neglecting neurological and developmental roots. In this research-driven session, Torrey Harmon highlights how trauma, attachment disruptions, and adverse early experiences can enhance vulnerability to sexual addiction and how trauma-informed therapeutic approaches can be transformational in promoting healing. Clinicians will learn why compulsive sexual behavior can be defined as an addictive disorder and be introduced to integrative treatment models, including an introduction to Dr. Michael Barta’s Reconnection Model®, which addresses root causes rather than symptoms. Ethical guidance will also help practitioners honor clients’ values while supporting sustainable healing in the digital age.

Are We Overlooking Screen-Induced Harm? Ethical Responsibilities and Solutions in the Age of Digital Obsession

Engineered to hijack attention and control behavior, digital technology has become a uniquely powerful driver of mental and social harm. The use of screens mimics behavioral addiction and erodes motivation, cognition, and real-world connection in clients, students, and families. Yet clear guidance on addressing it is rare, and professional blind spots risk undermining outcomes, breaching ethical duties, and allowing extensive exploitation. This session will help you recognize screen-induced harm, clarify your professional role, and apply practical, research-backed tools and strategies to mitigate damage. This is a call to join a growing resistance to digital manipulation by reclaiming mental autonomy and cognitive power.

From Shattered to Whole: Understanding Betrayal Trauma in Religious Women

Sexual betrayal—whether through pornography, infidelity, or other compulsive sexual behaviors—can profoundly disrupt a religious woman’s sense of self, relationships, and worldview. This session introduces Dr. Heidi Hastings’ Five Stages of Betrayal and Self-Development, a research-based model grounded in qualitative data and lived experiences. Participants will explore how betrayal impacts identity, spirituality, and sexuality, and how women move from devastation to empowerment. The presentation also offers practical tools for clinicians, coaches, and faith leaders supporting healing. Attendees will leave with insights into shame, trauma, and resilience, and strategies to foster post-betrayal growth and transformation.

From Isolation to Inspiration: Ethical Self-Care in Mental Health Practice

Self-care isn’t just personal—it’s ethical. In a field that increasingly emphasizes individualism and virtual connection, many clinicians find themselves isolated, burned out, and disconnected from a meaningful professional community. This interactive session explores how staying connected isn’t just helpful—it’s a core part of ethical practice. Through discussion and reflective exercises, we’ll examine how the field’s shift away from community affects our well-being and ethical decision-making. Together, we’ll rediscover connection as a sustaining force in our work—and a professional responsibility.

Playful Healing: Integrating Play into EMDR Sessions

This presentation explores how integrating play therapy into EMDR can enhance trauma healing for children. EMDR is an effective, evidence-based approach, but traditional protocols often need adjustments for young clients. By incorporating play-based techniques such as sand trays, expressive arts, puppets, and storytelling, clinicians can create developmentally appropriate and emotionally safe spaces for processing trauma. Attendees will learn how play therapy aligns with all eight EMDR phases and gain hands-on strategies, case examples, and interventions to foster engagement and expression. Whether new to EMDR or expanding their skills, participants will leave with practical tools to apply immediately in sessions.

From Anxious to Anchored: Preventing Burnout and Managing Stress

This session is for the “givers”—those who keep showing up for others even when overwhelmed. We’ll explore the spectrum of stress—positive, tolerable, and toxic—and how it affects our ability to stay present and compassionate. You’ll learn to regulate your nervous system with evidence-based tools grounded in self-compassion, stress cycle completion, and community care. This isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about anchoring yourself to support others while tending to your own healing. Walk away with practical strategies to reduce anxiety, prevent burnout, and build stronger, more resilient relationships through regulation and self-awareness.

Professional Ethics: When Religion Crosses the Therapist’s Threshold

When religion enters the therapy space—whether overtly or subtly—mental health professionals are often faced with complex ethical considerations. This interactive session will equip clinicians with the tools to recognize and manage their own biases, uphold client autonomy, and address religious or spiritual content with ethical integrity. Using real-world case studies and discussion, participants will explore best practices for maintaining professional boundaries, securing informed consent, and providing care that remains truly client-centered in the context of diverse belief systems.

Rewiring the Past, Healing the Present: The Role of Lifespan Integration in Treating Trauma and Repairing Attachment

This presentation will explore Lifespan Integration (LI), an internationally recognized therapeutic approach that has proven highly effective for treating traumas and aiding in attachment repair. LI allows for enhanced neural integration, increased resiliency, and emotional stability. The unique benefits of LI’s Timeline methodology will be highlighted through the identification of the basic principles of Lifespan Integration therapy, including protocols to both integrate trauma and repair attachment, an overview of LI's principal tool and its foundational rationale, as well as a review of clinical findings from Lifespan Integration psychotherapy.

Comorbid Anxiety and Eating Disorders: Assessment and Treatment Priorities

This presentation will provide a summary of the literature on the comorbidity of anxiety and eating disorders, focusing on identifying practical markers that warrant further assessment and explaining how and when clients who present with anxiety disorders should be properly assessed for eating disorders. Simple and widely available screening and self-reporting measures to assess eating disorders in clinical settings will be reviewed with pros and cons, and the applicability of each measure will be discussed. Similarities and priorities in the treatment of comorbid anxiety and eating disorders will be discussed to help clinicians maximize treatment gains and recovery.

The Consultant Pattern: Empowering vs Enabling our Youth

Today’s youth navigate a rapidly changing world that often prioritizes immediate relief over long-term growth. As a result, many struggle with distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and internalized negative self-belief. In our well-meaning efforts to support them, we may inadvertently fall into extremes—becoming overly permissive or rigidly authoritarian—both of which undermine resilience and autonomy. This session explores a balanced, intentional approach through The Consultant Pattern, a relationship model grounded in care, logic, and empowerment. Instead of solving problems for youth or controlling outcomes, this framework equips practitioners to validate emotional experiences, guide youth through challenges, and empower them to access their own internal resources.

Mindfulness for the Overwhelmed: A Practical, Grounded Approach for Helpers

In a profession built on holding space for others, mindfulness often becomes an abstract ideal, something we encourage OTHERS to do instead of a lived practice. This interactive workshop is designed for health professionals who feel overwhelmed, distracted, or disconnected. We’ll explore three levels of awareness and uncover why we often avoid the here-and-now. You’ll engage in discussion, learn about different forms of meditation, 10 practical tools to enhance your practice, and most importantly, experience a calming sensory-based guided meditation to help you return to yourself. This isn’t just theory-- it’s real-time self-care.

Continuing the Conversation: Navigating Love, Loss, and Laughter in Life and Practice

Building on his keynote, Desmond Lomax, CMHC, invites attendees to a deeper, interactive discussion on grief, healing, and human connection. This breakout session offers space to ask questions, share insights, and explore the real-life impact of love, loss, and laughter. Drawing from his work as a therapist and his own experiences with profound loss, Desmond will lead a compassionate conversation on how we support ourselves and others through emotional pain. Whether you're a mental health professional, someone who has experienced loss, or both, this session offers tools, insight, and connection through the shared experience of grief.

Beyond the Couch: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Therapy

Therapy is most effective when treatment doesn’t stop at the end of the session. This presentation focuses on putting client outcomes first by building treatment plans that are individualized, data-driven, and responsive. Backed by research, we’ll explore how to integrate client feedback, behavioral tracking, and measurable goals to increase engagement, follow-through, and long-term change. You’ll leave with practical strategies and tools to create collaborative plans that adapt to progress, keep clients invested, and strengthen your clinical impact.

Michael Batt

Screening for High Maskers - Differential Diagnosis for Neurodivergent Clients

Depression and Anxiety are common presenting complaints in neurodivergent people. As the understanding of high masking neurodivergence grows, clinicians must know when a client's presenting issue is related to their neurodivergence to provide the best care and to know when to refer for further testing. If a client is neurodivergent, it must first be determined if their current issue is related to that experience versus being related to another life event. The sooner a clinician can determine if neurodivergence contributes to their presenting issue, the better the treatment plan and outcomes will be. This presentation will teach common clinical clues and screeners to help clinicians with differential diagnoses and know when to refer for further evaluations.

Beyond the Baby Blues: Understanding and Treating Postpartum Mood Disorders

This practical, insight-rich training is tailored for therapists who support clients through the perinatal and postpartum journey, offering tools, strategies, and clinical understanding to enhance care during this critical period. In this workshop, you'll gain knowledge of the most common mood disorders during this period, learn how to identify those most at risk, and explore the underlying factors that contribute to these challenges. We’ll also examine the lasting impact on both parents and children, and highlight effective, evidence-based treatment options. This workshop will equip you with practical tools and reinforce the vital role therapists play in early detection, support, and recovery.

Professional Wills and the Ethics of Record Keeping

Mental health therapists have an ethical and legal obligation to maintain records and make them easily accessible to their clients to ensure continuity of care for their clients. As mental health professionals continue to expand their practices through interjurisdictional compacts, the requirements for maintaining records can become more complicated. This presentation will explore the benefits of having a professional will and planning head for records maintenance and care for your clients. Your professional specialist will be your plan of action for managing your practice in the event of a temporary emergency, permanent incapacity, or your death. This presentation will also explore what to include in your professional will if you practice in multiple states.

ADHD and Relationships: Navigating Challenges with Connection and Understanding

When ADHD is part of a relationship, partners often experience chronic miscommunication, emotional dysregulation, and intimacy struggles. This can lead to disconnection, resentment, and even depression. This session will address those patterns head-on, equipping clinicians and couples with practical, evidence-based tools to help shift from reactive cycles to collaborative connection. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how ADHD affects relational functioning, how symptoms are often misinterpreted, and how to foster empathy, follow-through, and emotional regulation. In alignment with the 2025 UVU Conference on Mental Health’s theme, we’ll focus on building bridges of connection and reducing stigma so couples can cultivate resilient, emotionally supportive relationships.

The Satisfied Life: What 12 Years of Positive Psychology Taught Us About Thriving

Mental health challenges are rising, not just on college campuses, but everywhere. This session explores the urgent need for preventative mental healthcare and the power of strength-based education to support wellbeing. Drawing from a 12-year mixed-methods study, we’ll share how a positive psychology course helped students reduce depressive symptoms, build resilience, and feel more empowered in their lives. Through both data and personal stories, we’ll explore how this approach can benefit a wide range of populations. Participants will also experience a brief positive psychology intervention and leave with tools to support wellbeing in their own communities.

An Ethical Imperative: Understanding Indirect Trauma and What You Can Do About It

Burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma are more than just occupational hazards—they are ethical concerns that directly impact the well-being of helping professionals and the quality of care they provide. This dynamic session will define these concepts, explore the serious consequences of leaving them unaddressed, and offer practical, evidence-based strategies for prevention and recovery. Participants will receive a self-assessment tool and leave with renewed motivation to prioritize self-care, foster resilience, and build trauma-informed practices that support both individual and organizational health.

Use of Self and Surroundings to Create Safety When Working with Diverse Populations

Speakers will present content and facilitate discussions around creative and flexible ways to collaboratively cultivate safety with individual clients, drawing on three main concepts: self-awareness, cultural humility, and self-reflection. This presentation will be largely discussion-based and will involve exploration of case studies, evidence-based interventions, and attendee experiences to promote increased awareness and use of self and surroundings to collaboratively create safety with clients from diverse backgrounds.

From Arrest to Restoration: Understanding Utah's Forensic Mental Health System

This presentation provides an in-depth overview of Utah’s forensic mental health system, laws, and intersection with law enforcement and the judicial system. Attendees will gain insight into the legal, clinical, and operational processes that govern competency evaluation and restoration, involuntary treatment, court involvement, and system coordination. The session will also highlight current system challenges, such as gaps in system resources and the law, interagency collaboration, and explore ongoing efforts to improve outcomes.

Beyond the Rescue: Ethical and Trauma-Informed Care for Survivors of Human Trafficking

Joseph Gleed draws on his rare dual perspective as a former undercover operator who helped rescue trafficked children and as a clinician specializing in complex trauma to guide participants through the ethical and clinical challenges of working with trafficking survivors. In this session, you will learn how trafficking shapes the nervous system and identity, explore common ethical dilemmas around safety, consent, and mandated reporting, and practice survivor-centered, evidence-based strategies such as EMDR, somatic work, and ACT. The presentation combines real-world stories, current research, and hands-on tools, enabling clinicians to foster safety, autonomy, and lasting healing while prioritizing their own well-being.

Common Mistakes Therapists Make When Working with Survivors of Domestic Violence

This presentation addresses common missteps therapists make with survivors of interpersonal violence and offers key insights on abuse dynamics, ethics, the legal system, intersectionality, medical needs, safety planning, and assessment.

Bridging the Gap: Meeting the Unique Needs of Persons with Disabilities who Experience Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

People with disabilities experience intimate partner violence (IVP) at disproportionately high rates, yet often face significant barriers when seeking support. Many counseling and mental health professionals lack the training to provide inclusive, trauma-informed care that accounts for the intersecting identities people with disabilities possess. As a result, persons with disabilities who experience IPV are left with fewer options, less protection, and unmet mental health needs. This presentation will explore practical strategies for mental health professionals and caseworkers to offer more responsive, affirming, and empowering care, helping ensure individuals with disabilities receive the respect, autonomy, and support necessary for healing and long-term safety.

Relational Trauma: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (The Power of Words)

This session explores how early interpersonal experiences shape the way individuals see themselves and others. This training examines how words—spoken or withheld—can either heal or harm, especially in the context of trauma. Participants will learn how language impacts brain development, attachment, and emotional regulation, and how to use words intentionally to support recovery. Through a trauma-informed lens, the training highlights the power of connection, validation, and repair in fostering resilience and relational healing.

Ethical Considerations in the Assessment and Management of Suicidal Clients

The purpose of this presentation is to increase awareness in understanding ethical principles in assessment and management of suicidal clients. The presentation will review how ethical principles such as Respect for Person, autonomy, beneficence, fidelity, nonmaleficence, veracity, justice, privacy, and integrity impact clinicians’ responses in ensuring safety for the client. The presentation will also discuss best practices in suicide risk assessment and management.

Parts in Crisis: Integrating DBT and IFS to Support Suicidal Clients and Clinicians' Internal Experiences

Support suicidal clients with clarity and compassion by applying DBT and IFS. This training offers practical tools for engaging clients’ internal parts while exploring clinicians’ own responses to the weight of this work. Learn to validate hopelessness without reinforcing suicide, assess risk with empathy, and build treatment plans that foster self-trust.

Early Intervention for Neurodivergent Children: Building Support, Reducing Risk

This workshop highlights the importance of early identification and intervention in supporting the mental health and well-being of neurodivergent children. It emphasizes collaboration among caregivers, educators, and clinicians, and addresses the risks of delayed diagnosis, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality. The session offers practical strategies for building inclusive school-based supports, with insights from both national trends and local data from Utah.

Bridging the Gap between Generations to Heal Relational Grief and Loss

This session focuses on the pronounced disconnect between the older and younger generations, especially since the arrival of the iPhone, creating a sense of grief and loss within relationships. Various contributors to increased mental health and suicidal ideation will be presented, providing six tiers of suicide to better understand the nuances of how the younger generation looks at suicide, and proactive coping strategies that can address mental health and protect against suicidal ideation.

Assessing Suicidality in Middle Childhood Through an Attachment-Centered Play Therapy Lens

This presentation offers a framework for assessing suicidal ideation and behaviors in middle childhood through Attachment-Centered Play Therapy. Participants will learn how to identify indicators of suicidality in play, understand how attachment patterns shape a child’s expression of distress, and attune to both verbal and nonverbal cues within the therapeutic relationship. Ethical and legal considerations—including documentation, mandated reporting, and caregiver involvement—will be addressed throughout. Attendees will leave with practical tools to navigate these tender situations with competency and compassion, while honoring each child’s developmental needs and supporting caregiver collaboration in a safe, attuned therapeutic process.

Mental Health Toolbox: A Holistic Approach to Workplace Wellbeing

This presentation introduces a foundational mental health toolbox grounded in social work's holistic perspectives for workplace implementation. Participants explore three key areas: recognizing early warning signs of mental health challenges, implementing the CARE Framework for supportive conversations, and building sustainable peer support systems that integrate internal and external resources across organizational levels. These frameworks transform abstract wellness concepts into actionable strategies, enabling attendees to create psychologically healthier workplaces where colleagues can thrive during challenging times.