Flourishing Across the Lifespan: Meaning, Mortality, and Belonging
November 13, 2026 | 8:45 AM - 4:00 PM CT
Fondren Hall at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
5501 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77004
Continuing Education: 6.5 credits for physicians, nurses, social workers, licensed professional counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, and psychologists.
Early bird pricing ends October 23!
At all stages of life, people confront uncertainty, suffering, and change. Deep, personal shifts, including fluctuations in health, relationships, roles, and sense of purpose, are challenging; existential concerns increasingly emerge in psychotherapy offices, faith communities, and family systems.
This conference explores how interdisciplinary approaches to mental health - psychotherapy, pastoral counseling, spiritual care - can support flourishing for people transitioning between stages of life. Drawing on contemporary research, clinical practice, faith traditions, and lived experience, speakers will offer helpful tools and insights for clinicians to use with clients. Topics will include:
Healthy aging
Resilience in the context of grief
Identity and marginality
Spiritual distress
Participants will consider how they may help individuals and communities navigate uncertainty, deepen belonging, cultivate wisdom, and sustain hope.
Early Bird Pricing:
Registration with CE Credits: $100
General Public and Students: $25
*Early bird pricing ends October 23
Regular Admission:
Registration with CE credits: $150.00
Students and general public (no CEs): $50.00
SPEAKERS
Nathan Carlin, PhD | “Medicine, Meaning, and Mortality”
Why do doctors take the Hippocratic Oath? Is the White Coat Ceremony a kind of medical ordination? People from all over make pilgrimages to places like the Texas Medical Center in search of salvation--not of their souls, but of their bodies. Are cardiologists and oncologists the high priests of our time? In this talk, Nathan Carlin will suggest that, while it is true that medicine and religion once had overt connections that have since declined, religion as a social force in medicine has not been extinguished but instead manifests via various expressions of meaning and morality.
The Reverend Dr. Nathan Carlin is the Director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at UTHealth Houston. Dr. Carlin holds the Samuel Karff Chair, and he is the editor of the Journal of Medical Humanities. He has published 12 books, including The Secularization of Medicine.
Robert Dykstra | “Slender Threads: Mentoring, Mutuality, and Modeling for Life”
This presentation gleans surprising elements from mutually rewarding mentoring relationships with young adult men from the life and work of late-19th-century Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins. Art historian David M. Lubin deems Eakins “the first American visual artist [of] psychological interiority,” who, in the words of one protégé, forged a community among students of “love, loyalty, devotion, and complete faith.”
Robert C. Dykstra is Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and co-organizer of the Philadelphia Group for Pastoral Theology with Boys and Men. His books include Finding Ourselves Lost: Ministry in the Age of Overwhelm and Valor and Vulnerability: Pastoral Explorations of Intimacy, Grief, and Resilience among Boys and Men.
Christina Watkins, OTR, MOT, BCPR | “Meaning-Making and Quality of Life: Occupational Therapy’s Role in Hospice, Palliative and End-of-Life Care”
This presentation explores the role of occupational therapy in hospice, palliative, and end-of-life care, with a focus on supporting meaningful participation and preserving quality of life. Participants will learn how occupational therapists facilitate legacy planning through life review, adaptive strategies, and personalized interventions that honor patient values, identities, and relationships. Case examples highlight how collaboration with healthcare teams can help patients create lasting connections and meaningful memories throughout their healthcare journey.
Christina Watkins, OTR, MOT, BCPR, is a Senior Occupational Therapist and ICU Clinical Program Lead at MD Anderson Cancer Center. She specializes in oncology rehabilitation, end-of-life care, legacy planning, early mobility, and clinical education, with experience in research, quality improvement, and interdisciplinary practice. Christina has presented nationally and locally on occupational therapy’s role in critical care, legacy planning, and end-of-life care.
Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, MD | “Psychotherapy, Faith, and Healthy Aging”
The presentation will explore the intersections and roles of psychotherapy and faith in healthy aging. Audience members will have the opportunity to reflect on how to support individuals from diverse backgrounds in their aging journeys.
Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, MD, is a tenured professor and the geriatric psychiatry fellowship director at Baylor College of Medicine. His training includes medical school at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, psychiatry residency at Baylor College of Medicine, and geriatric psychiatry fellowship at UCLA. He is a staff psychiatrist at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, Texas, where he is the director of ECT. He is the associate director for Education for the South Central MIRECC (Mental Illness Research, Education, Clinical Center). At BCM, he also has faculty appointments in the Huffington Department of Education, Innovation, and Technology and the School of Health Professions. His scholarly interests focus on geriatric psychiatry, cultural humility, and improving access to care.
Sheila LoboPrabhu MD | “Rethinking Healthy Aging Across the Lifespan”
The objectives of this lecture are to discuss healthy aging across the lifespan, integrating spirituality into psychiatric care, fostering resilience amid life's transitions, and helping clinicians address the deeper questions that often accompany psychological distress.
Sheila LoboPrabhu, MD is Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and Staff Psychiatrist at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, TX.
CLINICAL INTEGRATION PANEL DISCUSSION
The conference will conclude with a Clinical Integration Panel bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives to reflect on the day’s presentations and their implications for practice. Panelists will synthesize key insights from psychotherapy, spiritual care, faith traditions, and related disciplines, considering how they can inform the care of people navigating grief, aging, identity, spiritual distress, and other significant life transitions. The conversation will invite participants to translate the day’s learning into practical approaches for supporting resilience, meaning, connection, and flourishing across the lifespan.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this activity, participants will be better able to:
Describe how existential concerns present in contemporary psychotherapy practice.
Apply psychotherapeutic, spiritual, and community-based approaches to foster resilience and human flourishing across the lifespan.
Identify factors that promote healthy aging, social connection, and psychological well-being.
Integrate insights from psychotherapy, faith traditions, medicine, and the humanities into clinical work with individuals experiencing distress.