Grand Rounds @ORI
with Dr. Inna Rozentsvit
Date: Saturday, May 16, 12–2:30pm EDT
Location: Virtual Live
This Event Is Free, but Registration Is Required
Continuing Education: 2.5 CE Hours for NYS Social Workers and Licensed Psychoanalysts (sponsored by NAAP)
To Register please complete the Registration form
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Suggested Audience: Mental health professionals, clinicians, psychoanalysts,
transdisciplinary scholars, and all curious
This 2.5-hour Grand Round presents a functional psychoneurobiological model of addiction, reframing addiction not as a property of substances or behaviors, but as a dynamic organization of brain–mind functioning — what can be understood as an ‘addictive brain.’ Across substances and behaviors, including alcohol, opioids, gambling, gadgets, and other compulsive patterns, addiction will be examined as a shared neurobiological and functional process rather than a set of separate diagnostic categories.
This perspective shifts the focus from what is used to how the brain–mind is functioning. While substances and behaviors differ in presentation and risk, they engage common neurobiological pathways and, over time, may produce similar patterns of dysregulation across reward, stress, learning, and executive systems. Addiction, in this sense, reflects a reorganization of function rather than the effect of any single substance or activity.
The presentation begins by situating addiction within contemporary neurobiology, including the progression from reward-seeking to relief-seeking, the role of cue-driven activation, and the increasing dominance of compulsive patterns despite intact knowledge, insight, and awareness. It then introduces the functional medicine perspective, which shifts the clinical focus from disease entities to processes — how dysfunction develops, is maintained, and can be modified over time. Within this framework, addiction is understood not as a fixed diagnosis, but as an evolving pattern of functioning shaped by interactions across biological, psychological, relational, and environmental levels.
Building on this foundation, Functional PsychoNeuroBiology® is presented as an organizing model for understanding how the brain–mind operates across levels in real time. Using the Triune Brain as a clinical heuristic — extended here as the Triune Brain Plus™ to explicitly include continuous bodily involvement — the model distinguishes among survival-based, emotional-associative, and higher-level cognitive processing.
A central distinction is made between vertical, integrative processing and horizontal, habitual responding. Addiction is conceptualized as a shift toward horizontal organization, in which behavior becomes driven by survival-based or emotional-associative patterns, while higher-level cognitive capacities remain intact but are not engaged at the moment of action. This framework helps explain a core clinical observation: individuals may fully understand consequences yet continue to act in contradiction to that knowledge.
While grounded in addiction, this model extends to a broader range of clinical conditions characterized by dysregulation and non-integrated processing, including ADHD, trauma-related conditions, and personality-based patterns. This allows clinicians and other mental health professionals interested in neurobiology to use a unified framework for understanding how behavior becomes organized under conditions of stress, repetition, and neuroplastic change.
The second part of the presentation focuses on pathways of recovery and reorganization. Structured approaches, including twelve-step models, will be examined as functional processes that support restoration of vertical integration over time. The role of repetition, relational engagement, somatic regulation, self-observation, community, and meaning-making will be discussed as mechanisms through which individuals increase their capacity to pause, reflect, and respond rather than react.
Participants will come away with a clinically applicable framework for understanding addiction and related dysregulated states as processes of organization, with direct implications for assessment, treatment planning, recovery, and long-term change.
At the end of this educational activity, participants will be able to:
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists; social workers; addiction specialists; counselors; marriage & family therapists; neuropsychologists; primary care and integrative clinicians; recovery professionals; and trainees or supervisors seeking a process-based understanding of addiction that cuts across substances, behaviors, and diagnostic categories.
This Grand Round is also relevant for clinicians working with overlapping presentations — trauma, ADHD, personality organization, and compulsive patterns — where dysregulation, repetition, and loss of agency are central features, including individuals who are psychologically insightful yet behaviorally unable to shift entrenched patterns.
WHY THIS MATTERS NOW
Across clinical and community settings, addiction is still largely approached as a property of a substance or behavior — leading to fragmented care across alcohol, opioids, gambling, and technology-related patterns.
At the same time, clinicians routinely encounter a central paradox: individuals may understand consequences, often in detail, yet continue to act against that knowledge.
Without a functional, process-based model, this is frequently misattributed to resistance, lack of motivation, or “noncompliance,” rather than recognized as a shift in brain–mind organization — one in which higher-level capacities remain intact but are not engaged at the moment of action.
WHAT YOU TAKE WITH YOU
You will leave with a coherent framework for recognizing when behavior is driven by integrated (vertical) processing versus habitual, survival-based (horizontal) organization — and how this distinction changes assessment, language, and intervention in real time, including when to interpret, when to regulate, and when to interrupt habitual sequences.
The Functional PsychoNeuroBiology® model provides a way to:
• understand addiction beyond specific substances or behaviors
• track how dysregulation organizes and stabilizes across systems
• recognize why insight alone does not translate into action
• support recovery as a process of re-integration rather than suppression
The goal is not to add another diagnostic lens, but to offer a clinically usable map — one that clarifies what is happening in the moment and expands the range of possible responses for both clinician and patient.
Inna Rozentsvit, MD, PhD, MBA, MSciEd is a neurologist, neurorehabilitation specialist, psychoanalyst, and founder of Functional PsychoNeuroBiology® approach. She bridges neuroscience, psychoanalysis, developmental science, and trauma-informed care to offer clinicians new tools for understanding the adaptive brain. Dr. Rozentsvit is a founder and the executive director of Neurorecovery Solutions, Inc. She is also a director of program development at the Object Relations Institute and editor-in-chief of MindConsiliums. Her work focuses on resilience, intergenerational trauma, neurodiversity, and meaning-making across the lifespan.
National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an Approved Provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychoanalysts. #P‑0019. 2.5 hours.
National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0168. 2.5 hours.
This event is free to attend.
If the CEs are requested — there is a $25 fee to process the CE certificate.
As a nonprofit organization, Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis welcomes optional donations to support the continuation of free educational programming.
