2025 Rosenthal Retreat

Please join the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis in welcoming Dan Handel, MD for our 30th Annual Rosenthal Retreat/Workshop via Zoom on Saturday November 22, 2025. Join Dr. Handel to learn about Enhancing Hope through Strategic Hypnotic Suggestion

This presentation will be recorded and available for two weeks after the presentation.

This MN Society of Clinical Hypnosis conference is designed to meet continuing education requirements for many clinical disciplines. We are requesting CE approval from the following boards and organization:

• MN Board of Marriage & Family Therapy
• MN Board of Psychology
• MN Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy (LPC & LPCC)
• American Society of Clinical Hypnosis

Professionals in other related clinical disciplines, as well as those working outside of Minnesota can submit CE certificates to their corresponding boards for independent approval. Actual CE amounts will be dependent upon your specific licensure board and attendance.

Registration Deadline 11/21/2025

Description

This 6 hour workshop is designed to enhance the participants’ understanding of the nature of suffering and grief in the face of persistent physical and/or psychological distress, and employ skillful hypnotic strategies to foster hopeful expectancy.The nature of ongoing symptoms and distress often result in a ‘negative set’ that of itself impairs the ability to fully engage in therapy and limits hope for lasting improvement. We will explore the model of pain, discuss the nervous system’s response to ongoing distress, and offer a model for hypnotic suggestion to strategically alter perception and meaning-making involved in this process. Specific methodologies to ‘deconstruct’ the negative mental set that commonly accompanies chronic and intractable symptoms such as pain, anxiety, and depression will be discussed, including specific hypnotic approaches to challenge negative self-talk, to interrupt negative loops in thinking or feeling states, and to offer greater distance from or qualitative awareness of such perception. This stepped approach enhances self-efficacy and offers opportunities to significantly improve one’s mental set, which can enhance therapeutic progress and foster a more hopeful and engaged patient in the healing process. 

Agenda – All Times CST

Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Biography

Dr. Handel retired in 2019 from a career in palliative medicine and family medicine, having served most recently as the founding Chief of Palliative Medicine at Denver Health Medical Center and professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine since 2013.  His prior career at the National Institutes of Health included service as founding Medical Director of NIH’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine training fellowship in Bethesda, Maryland and as senior clinician in palliative medicine at NIH’s hospital.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice and American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, and held prior academic faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and University of Texas Southwestern. Dan is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota’s Family Practice residency, and ls a Diplomat of the American Academy of Pain Management.

Dr. Handel has served as medical director for nonprofit hospices and as founding Medical Director of a multidisciplinary, nonprofit medical institute for pain research and practice. He developed inpatient and outpatient pain and palliative care services within a large acute hospital system, and developed clinical services for a Texas free-standing hospice hospital.  He has served in volunteer leadership positions in the American Cancer Society, the NIH Palliative Care Medical Working Group, Texas Medical Association, and Federation for State Medical Boards, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Dr. Handel teaches nationally and internationally, has coauthored an eBook on hypnosis in palliative care, and has authored or co-authored more than thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on pain, palliative care, and medical hypnosis. 

Registration (Closes at 5 PM CST on November 22, 2025)

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