Cognitive Resilience Strategies

Register now

Dr. Bruno Demichelis and Timothy Harkness
2-day Workshop
April 12-13

Biofeedback and neurofeedback teach people to manage their psychophysiological response to stress. This approach compliments cognitive strategies for managing challenge and opportunity. This seminar deals with cognitive resilience strategies, and covers some classic CBT techniques such as ABC, and introduces some more rigorous in-depth techniques around personalising, generalising and catastrophising. Then it adapts Philip Tetlock’s Superforecasting techniques as a way of assessing the magnitude of challenge/threat, and uses motivation theory and risk management theory to give insight into responses to challenge/threat.

Learning Objectives

1. Learn to balance psychophysiological techniques with cognitive techniques
2. Gain insight into classic CBT techniques such as ABC and contextualising
3. Deploy modern psychological techniques such as forecasting and motivation in service of resilience

About Dr. Bruno Demichelis

Dr. Bruno Demichelis is one of the most successful (and private) sport psychologists in the world.

He has worked with some of the most successful athletes worldwide, he has coached players at soccer team Milan AC for almost 25 years, he has supported Chelsea FC to win the Double (winning the FA Cup and league title in the same season). He has mentored world leading golf players and cyclists. He briefly consulted players at Canucks hockey team.

He was also a very successful athlete himself, practicing martial arts for two decades, winning several European and World titles as a karate practitioner.

He has always protected the privacy of his work and the people he worked with, declining several offers to disclose secrets about his players or writing books.

This workshop is a rare exception to this norm.

About Timothy Harkness

Tim began his Sports Psychology practice in Durban, South Africa in 1998. He worked with a range of professional sports and teams, including the Dolphins professional cricket team as well as individual cricketers.

He began to work internationally in 2007 with Indian Squash Player Joshana Chinappa, and in 2008 and 2012 worked with Abhinav Bindra.

Tim began working with biofeedback in 2007, in his private practice helping children learn to concentrate better, and in his sports practice helping athletes. One of his most high profile successes was helping Abhniav Bindra become India’s first (and so far only) Olympic Gold medallist in 2008.

BFE Director, Lawrence Klein introduced Tim to Bruno Demichelis in 2008, and when Demichelis took the position of Director of Human Performance at Chelsea Football Club, he invited Tim to join him and assist with the MindRoom, which was a combination of Demichelis’s vision, and Thought Technology innovation and equipment.

Tim is currently Head of Sports Science and Psychology at Chelsea Football Club. In the summer he served as Team Psychologist to the Saudi Arabia Football Team at the 2018 World Cup, helping them register their first World Cup match win in a generation. In August he was instructed by the SA Minister of Sport to assist with H.E.’s Pyramids FC project in Egypt. Currently he is helping the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League cricket competition. Tim is Director of Harkness Coaching, which consults to hedge funds in London. He is also a cycling coach, and works with world class squash players.

Tim has lived in London for 10 years, but is originally South African. He is married with 3 sons, and is a competitive cyclist and squash player.