About this course

Learning Objectives

• Identify and describe the 14 sparks that persist in patients with serious mental illness.
• Analyze the neurobiological, psychological, and cultural underpinnings of enduring human drives in psychiatric illness.
• Describe recovery-oriented strategies that incorporate sparks into individualized treatment planning.
• List methods that integrate patient perspectives and lived experience into clinical decision-making.
• Critically evaluate systemic and social barriers that limit patients’ ability to access sustaining sparks.
• Implement interventions that leverage sparks to strengthen therapeutic alliance, enhance quality of life, and reduce relapse risk.

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Clovis Raymond, MD

  Assistant Clinical Professor, Columbia University; Chief of Psychiatry, Rockland Psychiatric Center

  Clovis Raymond, MD Dr. Clovis Raymond is a Dual Board-Certified Psychiatrist, Educator, and Author with over two decades of experience in clinical psychiatry and medical education. He currently serves as Chief of Psychiatry at Rockland Psychiatric Center in New York and as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, where he trains medical students, residents, and fellows in recovery-oriented care. Dr. Raymond is the author of The Sparks That Endure: Why Our Core Human Drives Survive Mental Illness (forthcoming, 2025), a comprehensive exploration of the enduring preoccupations, such as sex, money, food, music, spirituality, and creativity, etc. that persist in individuals living with serious mental illness. He has developed a companion CE/CME-accredited course designed to help clinicians integrate these human sparks into treatment planning, therapeutic engagement, and recovery-oriented practice. In addition to his academic and clinical roles, Dr. Raymond has served as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army Reserve, contributing to the care of service members and veterans. His professional expertise spans inpatient psychiatry, outpatient treatment, trauma, forensic, child & adolescent, and cultural psychiatry, with a focus on improving access, engagement, and person-centered care for diverse populations.

Disclosure

References

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