Hope, Belief, and Imagination: Dr. Sara Denning PhD on Applied Neuroscience, Preventative Practices, and Your Vision for Yourself
By Julia Gamolina
Dr. Sara Denning’s mission has been to build a bridge from neuroscience research to clinical and public health application with personal processes and protocols. With her practice, Dr. Denning provides practical daily applications for the patient to use as a learning experience to build new self-care behaviors for chronic stress and chronic illness.
Her mentors include Bruce McEwen at The Rockefeller University, Linda Mayes at the Yale Child Study Center, and Keren Bache at the The Friedman Brain Institute of Mt. Sinai. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Dr. Denning talks about coming to psychology, her focus on adaptive behavioral therapy, and managing stress and anxiety in a field like architecture, advising those just starting a career to have a strong vision for themselves for all kinds of future timelines.
JG: You’re a clinical psychologist now, with your own therapy practice in New York, but I know that wasn’t the first career you had. Tell me how you started out!
SD: That’s an easy story. I did not get into psychology at a young age, because I knew that I hadn’t lived enough. I walked into an undergraduate psychology class and realized, “Nope, this is not the time.” So, I had three other careers before I went to grad school.
First, I came to New York, and I was an art director for television commercials. That was for five years. Then, I met my French husband, and he had a secret business he had always wanted to do, which was to have the vineyard that his family owned in France — and some were in Corsica, and some somewhere else — and bring that here. He had a lot of old Beaujolais and Burgundy and Bordeaux connections, so we started a wine business in America! And that’s how I got my French family.
How did you then finally decide to go to grad school for psychology, and to eventually get your PhD in neuroscience?
I knew I wanted to go to grad school, and I knew it was about time ten years after I started thinking about it. I was thirty-three years old when I went to grad school for psychology. It was time, and it felt right, and I went to an incredible school, the New School for Social Research, because they’re very European and old-school and I learned all the great classic things.
After that, I wanted to start practicing, but like a lot of people who start a new career, I didn’t feel I was ready. Which was really great, because when I did start, I knew that I wanted to do something really different. That’s when I started researching and looking at a lot of different things, and trying to figure out what can be done besides just talking, when it came to therapy.
It was about five years later that neuroscience really just started, which is shocking, because we’ve only really seen a real human brain, alive and in action, since only 2001. I know, that’s shocking! So that’s when I totally switched to neuroscience, got my PhD in something very new and very different, for which I had to find the right people because as is in any career, not everyone is happy when you do something new.
[Laughs] Tell me about it.
Yes! I think it’s really important for people to know that there’s going to be someone, somewhere, that’s going, “Oh I don’t think so,” or someone that gives you a bad review, or someone that isn’t quite behind you, but that’s because they don’t know what you’re doing.
So, talk to me about therapy, because I feel like for most people, when they hear the word “therapy”, they immediately think of talk therapy, which is not what you do. You practice adaptive behavioral therapy. Tell me about this distinction.
It’s really important that everyone understands that all doctors are not the same. And as such, not all therapists are not the same. People study the basics, but always come to the question of, “Well, where do we go beyond that?”
Applied neuroscience is taking what’s in the lab, and in the research, and finding a way to safely and productively, implement it to patients in a structured way. Learning how your brain works is not something that talk therapy gives you. And it’s not about things like the hippocampus and the amygdala and all of that, that’s all very popular and great – your therapist needs to know all of that, and your therapist needs to know how to draw a picture of your brain, but what they’re really telling you about is how all that works and the effect is has on you.
What I do teaches patients what their brain is already doing, so that they know when to go, “Uh-oh, this is happening, and this is what this means to me,” or “My body feels this way right now,” or “I’m beginning to think this kind of thing,” and they can stop, and get in there, and possibly prevent. All good medicine is preventative. You know when you need to stop and step in with yourself – not just talk to yourself, but give yourself some options – “Why am I reacting this way, what do I want for me.” That’s how you have choices. So this therapy, which I’ve taught to other therapists and clinicians, is really about understanding the recipe! You can get in there, in your brain, and change patterns.
“What I do teaches patients what their brain is already doing, so that they...can stop, and get in there, and possibly prevent. All good medicine is preventative.”
Throughout your career, you’ve created so many incredible tools to use — tools like The Anxiety Notebook, Prepare for Stress, an app, also something called Therapy Walk, the list goes on. Tell me about these projects you’ve developed from your work over the years.
Well there it all is, you said it yourself. First we had the Anxiety Notebook, that was the beginning of how we did something different. In there are your basic tools. Basic tools are things that we can do, that we can give a try with patients – experiments. Prepare for Stress is much more tool-oriented, and there’s the app you mentioned that you check in with. There’s a podcast you can listen to, we also have a YouTube channel. All these interactive ways of getting into what you need, and improving on tools and applications, making it easier for people to grab a hold of the therapy, and do something with it.
Therapy Walk is my wonderful thing, because that’s what I did my dissertation on, a long, long time ago. I’m just now editing the audiobook, and that will be out! It’s an audiobook, and then training videos to prepare for your walk, so then you can go do it. Same thing – application. That one is a twenty-year old idea that’s had many different sketchbooks and notes.
Here’s why I really wanted to interview you — I mean, there are many, many reasons for which I wanted to interview you — but what I was thinking a lot about is that I come from architecture, and the culture in architecture is that of overwork, high stress, low pay. All of this starts in college, in architecture school — with seventeen and eighteen year-olds — and it just continues and continues in the profession. For someone in that situation, realizing that the amount of stress or overwork is no longer sustainable, what advice do you have? Especially if ultimately, they do love what they do and don’t want to leave architecture?
The conditions in architecture are actually true in so many professions. It’s ultimately free labor, and it’s really awful. I think the first question for anyone is, “Why am I in this?” Not “Why did I want to do this?” but “Why am I in this, now.” And it’s a very personal question. I think that’s what gets wiped away by stress and anxiety — people think, “It’s my schedule, it’s my supervisor, it’s my project,” — and so you externalize and get pulled along by these demands outside yourself, because you want to be an architect!
But what do you want to do with architecture, and the skills that you have? That sets you up now, to wake up on a Monday, and say, “This is my week to use what I’m learning and what I’m doing…how do I make that relevant so that it adds to my skillset, so that it gets on my resume, it is important to me somehow.” So now, at least, we have a new aspect, which is, “I am in this for me.” And that really lays the groundwork — that particular individual now wants to stay in that job, or perhaps they say, “I’ve done what I can here, this no longer interests me, and now I can talk to a lot of other people and see what I can do next.”
That’s what you’re doing Julia, and that’s what people do in other professions — providing that network, so that people can go talk to other people. They may be twenty years old, and just starting the next phase, they may be thirty-four years old and leaving a company to do something of their own. That is so important. Going back to my story for a moment, there is no way I could have created what I did without two phenomenal mentors. I truly walked up to them at conferences, and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Denning and I’m really interested in helping neuroscience get out of research and to patients and so are you, and can I talk to you.”
Amazing.
Without them, I would not be doing what I’m doing. One is at the Yale School for Childhood Development, Dr. Linda Mayes. She is incredible, and she applied this really early. The other one is sadly no longer with us, because Dr. Bruce McEwen died during the pandemic. We’re very sad, but I had time with him for five years. And I had that very thing that you are trying to provide! Find a person or two, and talk to them. See what your options are.
“Managing setbacks is not about being strong, or anything like that. This is about having a really deep, deep respect for what you want your life to be like.”
What have been some of the biggest challenges for you, and how did you manage through?
What I was saying earlier — disappointments, setbacks, somebody not supporting you…it has to be personal. That sounds very strange these days, when so many are told not to take things personally. But you have to take it personally, because it is a part of what you are trying to do as a person. Your work, your wishes, your dreams, what you want your life to be like and how you want to contribute to the world — it’s personal! So of course, we take it personally, and of course we get hurt and disappointed.
I was horribly hurt by my academic advisor at the New School, in my interview for their post-graduate program, which I did not get into! And I had been a straight A student, front row, in everyone of his classes, all the way. And he said to me, in my interview, “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
Whoa!
Well, I was sassy enough at the time to just say to him, “That actually hurt my feelings. I don’t know why you would say that to me.”
Good for you.
No wonder I didn’t get into that program [laughs]. So, disappointments, setbacks, anxiety — all of these can lead to panic attacks, to sleeplessness, to arguments with your best friend or lover…it all has a very personal effect. When people realize that my reaction, it is how I’m feeling, it is my reality — that’s valid.
You know, it also took me a very long time to find my mentors. It wasn’t right away. I wrote my dissertation basically by myself because my professors at the University of California didn’t know what I was writing about! I did it anyway. Managing setbacks is not about being strong, or anything like that. This is about having a really deep, deep respect for what you want your life to be like.
What are you most excited about right now?
Okay! My new house! [Laughs] As you already know, I’ve crawled over broken glass and tried to work with several architects who just could not do what I wanted to do. And I’m a very clear person and I do know what I like and what I don’t. And when I present sketches to people, and talk about real materials, and they want to start all over again, that’s incredibly frustrating. What I’m excited about is that I will find an architect who can do something simple. That’s what I’m excited about, because I will, I’m sure [laughs].
Who are you admiring right now? Who else is out there in the world doing wonderful work that you’d want everyone to know about?
My grandson, who is twenty-eight, and his cousin, who is probably thirty-two. I’m admiring them because they are starting out with applied neuroscience, and they’re of an age where they will be the therapists we all look to. And they’ve grabbed a hold of this field at the right time, because their professors know what they’re doing, their mentors know what they’re doing.
Obviously, I’ve had an influence on them, which I’m very happy to say, but I so admire what they’re doing because they are the new therapists that are about to come about, and that takes a lot these days because nowadays, therapists have to study five different fields! Nowadays, you have to study neurology, biology, cellular biology, computation…it’s amazing what this field has turned into. I admire anyone starting out in psychology now, not just in science, if that makes sense.
Finally, what advice do you have for those just starting their careers, and do you have any specific or additional advice for women who are just starting their careers?
Let’s start backwards. For women — I think this group of women, and I’m going to call it a group, because it’s a diverse group — has a great need for clarity. Clarity of themselves and the environment they’re in. This is the follow up to conversations on sexuality and gender and pay, and everything else that just needs to be very simply stated.
I would say that making statements of reality is the best thing. Instead of going in circles about, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to say this,” or, “What is someone going to think,” it’s as simple as stating, “I’ve noticed that my colleagues are getting paid more than I am.” Or, “I do need this time off, there is a medical reason that I wish not to discuss.” Simple statements. For women to be able to say that, at any age of course, but especially as they’re starting out — to remember to just state their reality, not explain it, not defend it, not politicize it. Just state things like they are — here’s what’s going on. “Here’s what I think, feel, need,” and do that as simply as possible.
“Allow yourself to imagine what you’ll be doing in five years, ten years, two years, three months, and I mixed all of that up in there on purpose. What are you doing next month? Next October? Really let it all be there.”
And your advice for those just starting out?
For everyone just starting out in their careers, I would say be hopeful, be excited, and allow yourself to dream. Allow yourself to imagine what you’ll be doing in five years, ten years, two years, three months, and I mixed all of that up in there on purpose. What are you doing next month? Next October? Really let it all be there.
There will be so many times, and so many situations where people will say, “What do you want to do?” And that’s too big of a question! And it’s too singular. It’s not all of these different things. Maybe I want to be an architect who builds commercial buildings that look like Japanese pagodas. I don’t know! It doesn’t matter! Maybe most of my inspiration comes from animals! The point is, it doesn’t matter. But letting that hope and imagination and belief really be the strongest thing, because in too many situations, it’s squashed. Don’t allow anyone to let you squash your vision for yourself.
Thank you Dr. Denning.
I also want to thank you.
Oh gosh. That is really nice.
Well. You’re doing something that is very important to a lot of people. But, you’ve also been incredibly diligent and a hard worker at doing what you needed to do for yourself.
Thank you. That’s very kind.
Now you have to put that in the interview.
[Laughs] Okay, I will.