ray gottlieb

Biography

Ray GOTTLIEB, O.D.,PhD,FCOVD,FCSO is the Dean of the College of Syntonic Optometry.
 
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Optometry in 1964 and earned his PhD at Saybrook University in San Francisco in 1978 (Dissertation:  A Neuropsychology of Nearsightedness). 
 
He has served on the academic faculty of the University of Houston, College of Optometry, on the clinical faculty of two optometry colleges and a medical school, and is on the piano faculty of the Chautauqua Institution Music School.
 
He is consulting optometrist at a New York State psychiatric hospital and is a low vision specialist at a large clinic for the visually impaired.
 
He is a Regional Clinical Seminar presenter for OEP and lectures at optometry conventions: OEP, COVD, ICBO, NORA, CSO, Gesell Institute and at medical educational, alternative health and psychology conferences.
 
His book, Attention and Memory Training: Stress-point Learning on the Trampoline was published by OEP in 2005.
 
His other writing includes chapters for OEP on myopia and fusion, and he has published numerous articles on syntonic  phototherapy and behavioral optometry.
 
He invented a method for preventing presbyopia called the Read without Glasses Method, available in DVD format.
 
He is the proud recipient of the CSO Spitler Award and the NORA Advancement of Science Award.
 
Attention and Memory Training based on Pepper Stress Theory
 
A two day seminar taught by Ray Gottlieb, O.D., Ph.D., FCOVD, FCSO
 
Optometrist Dr. Robert Pepper developed the stresspoint learning approach in the 1960s.
Pepper stress training is based on principles and exercises that work to enrich brain network connections under stressful conditions.
This improves attention, memory, motor, learning, and performance abilities that transfer to real-world learning.
It helps everyone — young children with birth injury or genetic delays, average students and adults with no diagnosed problems, victims of stroke and head trauma, patients with visual impairment, aging adults with cognitive decline, high functioning learners, and accomplished performers (actors, musicians, athletes).
 
The stress-point is when a learning task is made just a little harder than the patient’s ability to succeed. Here we expect errors at first but then success after a few attempts. As simple tasks are mastered at a fluent, automatic level, more difficult challenges are prescribed until skills become strong and automatic and the mind is more and more alert and fully focused in present time.
 
Training at the stress-point does 2 things:
 
  • It teaches how to make the necessary mental effort to increase focus; and
  • It exposes the negative patterns that prevent optimal learning. Because they avoid stressful challenges, patients are usually unaware of the emotional, motor, perceptual, planning or performance deficits that block their learning. Because they are unaware, they feel helpless; they lose motivation and never learn to reorganize their brain to master challenges above their comfort threshold.The weak learning patterns revealed under stress focus the next steps of the training.

Exercises and stress-point principles will be demonstrated for group and one-on-one training using a small trampoline and other rhythm devices. Attendees will learn how to:
 
  • Find and fine-tune the stress-point teaching window
  • Communicate in ways that motivate and evoke patients’ positive self-confidence
  • Recognize stress-point syndromes and behaviors -- anxiety/impulsive, convergence excess, post-failure failure, goal neglect, fatigue, avoidance, loss of focus, frustration
  • Increase attention span, depth, error detection, error prediction, post-error slowing, and recovery of attention
  • Evaluate gross body coordination and train complex movement patterns in order to resolve retained primitive reflexes and develop timing, multi-tasking and self-directed actions
  • Improve executive visual function — planning, self-control and course correction
  • Train for mastery, fluency and flow

Seminary Program

1st Morning: Neuro-Optometric Overview
HOUR 1: Review of nervous systems and their relationship to visual evaluations
HOUR 2: Scientific support of cross-modal processing theories
HOUR 3: Review of effects of retinal stimulation with lenses, prisms and some filters
 
1st Afternoon: Z-Bell Used as a Screening Device
HOUR 1: Differentiation of proprioceptive vs. visual problems
HOUR 3: Hands-on practice in Using the Z-Bell as a screening technique
 
2nd Morning: Z-Bell Used as a Diagnostic Tool
HOUR 1: Examination of reactions and responses in small visual space
HOUR 2: Evaluation techniques in large visual space
HOUR 3: When to consider which of lenses, prisms and some filters
 
2nd Afternoon: Case Examples and Brainstorming
HOUR 1: Summary of types of cases
HOUR 2: Hands-on practice
HOUR 3: Question and answer session