Speeches, Presentations, Trainings and Critical Incidents

60–90 minutes on zoom for $1,250. In-person in NJ, Philly or NYC for 60-180 minutes is $3,000. Anywhere else is considered a full day and costs $4,000 and requires travel arrangements. Keynotes, conferences and customized organizational programs are priced separately. A 20% discount is offered when two or more presentations are booked together. Read participant feedback, organizer testimonials and presentation ratings.

There are also two additional services available: On-Site Critical Incident Response and Clinical Supervision Training and Consultation. The Critical Incident Response description appears at the end of the first section of presentations, while the Clinical Supervision Training and Consultation program is described at the bottom of the page.

Presentation Topics

Organizations, Leadership & Critical Incidents

  • After Death and Disaster: What Organizations Should Do in the First 72 Hours
  • On Death and Grieving
  • Keeping Politics Out of the Workplace

Behavioral Health & American Society

  • Suicide: Assessment, Intervention and What Comes After
  • Social Isolation and the Collapse of the American Community
  • Screen Addiction: They Want to Take All of Your Time
  • Online Sports Gambling and Young Males
  • The Greenagel Equations: Practical Tools for Clinical Work

Public Safety, Military & Veterans

  • The Job Might Be Killing You: Law Enforcement, Trauma, Family and Behavioral Health
  • Counseling in the Military and with Veterans

Substance Misuse & Public Policy

  • The History of Marijuana Policy in the United States (and Marijuana’s Effects on the Brain & Body)
  • The Opiate Epidemic and the Medical Industrial Complex

Artificial Intelligence

  • Artificial Intelligence, Thinking and Professional Judgment
  • AI Use and Risks in Clinical Settings

These presentations are designed for organizations dealing with suicide, substance misuse, trauma, social isolation, technological change, critical incidents, public safety and institutional stress. Most talks combine data, narrative, case examples and clear action steps. All presentations are adapted to the audience, setting and time constraints and are delivered in formats ranging from focused briefings to full-day programs.

ORGANIZATIONS, LEADERSHIP & CRITICAL INCIDENTS

After Death and Disaster: What Organizations Should Do in the First 72 Hours

Workplaces are often unprepared for what happens after a suicide, workplace fatality, serious accident, shooting or other critical incident. Leaders may have plans for operations, safety and communications, but far less guidance for how to respond to employees, supervisors and families in the hours and days that follow.

Drawing on more than a decade of responding to deaths, disasters and critical incidents involving law enforcement, military personnel, construction workers, treatment programs and other organizations, this presentation examines what leaders should do in the first 72 hours after a traumatic event. It addresses how quickly and honestly to communicate while protecting confidentiality, who needs to be informed and what different groups need to know, time away from work, contact with affected employees and families, opportunities for employees to ask questions and process what occurred, and appropriate follow-up after the immediate response.

The presentation also examines common organizational mistakes. Employees throughout an organization often know that something serious has happened, even when they were not directly involved. Silence, evasiveness or failing to acknowledge what occurred can create additional anger and mistrust. Leaders need to consider supervisors, support staff and other employees as well as those most directly affected. They also need to recognize and address unfair blame, regret, anger and shame without minimizing appropriate grief or distress.

The focus is practical: what organizations can do before, during and immediately after a critical incident to reduce additional harm, support recovery and avoid allowing a terrible event to become an organizational crisis as well.

On-Site Critical Incident Response

Service

I provide rapid on-site support to organizations following workplace deaths, suicides, serious accidents, shootings, overdoses and other critical events.

The response is tailored to the organization and the incident. It may include consultation with leadership before arriving; large-group briefings; smaller confidential discussions; individual short-term counseling; support for employees, supervisors and families; and guidance about time away from work, return to work and follow-up care.

I also help leaders determine who needs to be informed, what different groups need to know and how to communicate quickly and honestly while protecting privacy and confidentiality. That includes employees who were not directly involved. Support staff, administrative personnel, supervisors and coworkers often know something serious has happened and should not simply be ignored because they were not at the scene.

The work may also involve helping organizations address grief, anger, guilt, regret, blame and other reactions that emerge after a critical event; identifying people who may need additional support; providing opportunities for questions and follow-up; and advising leadership about what to do next.

My role can begin within hours of an incident and continue through follow-up as needed. I have provided critical incident response and consultation involving law enforcement, military personnel, construction workers, behavioral healthcare organizations and other workplaces.

For immediate or planned critical incident response, email fgreenagel2@gmail.com

On Death and Grieving

Grief does not follow a predictable timetable, and people do not respond to death in the same way. This presentation examines what happens in the immediate aftermath of a death, how grief changes over time and why some of the things people commonly say and do in an effort to help are ineffective or even harmful.

Drawing on more than two decades of counseling people following deaths and other profound losses, as well as facilitating grief groups, writing extensively about grief and publishing a book on the subject, I examine grief, anger, guilt, regret, meaning-making and the difficult transition from the immediate crisis to living with a loss over months and years.

The presentation also addresses how friends, families, coworkers and professionals can support grieving people without trying to eliminate appropriate pain or imposing expectations about how they should grieve. Stories and case examples illustrate both the common patterns that emerge after death and the enormous differences in how individuals experience loss.

Particular attention is paid to difficult periods that are often underestimated after the initial support has disappeared, including birthdays, holidays and death anniversaries, as well as the value of anticipating those periods and making a plan for them.

The presentation can be adapted for memorial events, professional conferences, workplaces, law enforcement and military organizations, treatment programs and communities following a significant loss.

Keeping Politics Out of the Workplace

Political disagreement is inevitable. Allowing it to interfere with professional responsibilities is not.

Political conflict can damage teams, alienate clients and customers, undermine public trust and create unnecessary organizational risk, particularly in workplaces that receive public funding, exercise public authority or serve politically diverse communities. This presentation examines how employees and leaders can distinguish personal political beliefs from professional roles while maintaining appropriate boundaries at work.

Using case examples, the presentation examines political speech and activity, social media, interactions with coworkers and clients, use of organizational positions and resources, perceived political favoritism and situations in which an employee’s personal conduct begins to affect the credibility of the organization. It also examines the responsibilities of supervisors and leaders when political conflict enters the workplace.

The emphasis is on judgment rather than pretending there is one rule that resolves every situation. Participants learn to identify relevant risks, ask better questions and recognize when an issue should be referred to organizational policy, HR, legal counsel, state or federal law or an applicable professional code of ethics.

The goal is not to tell employees what political beliefs they should hold. It is to establish professional expectations that allow people with different beliefs to work together while protecting the organization’s mission, employees, clients and public credibility.

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH & AMERICAN SOCIETY

Suicide: Assessment, Intervention and What Comes After

Suicide prevention requires more than knowing warning signs or providing someone with a crisis number. This presentation examines how to recognize suicide risk, assess it directly and indirectly and respond when someone may be in danger.

Greenagel reviews current federal and state suicide data and can tailor the presentation to specific regions, professions and populations. He covers common warning signs and red flags, three simple questions that professionals and laypeople can use to identify potential risk and direct assessment language, including how and when to ask someone if they are thinking about killing themselves.

Greenagel’s 5 Stages of Suicide provides a practical framework for understanding the progression from brief suicidal thoughts to longer thoughts, development of a plan involving place, time and method, an attempt and completion. The presentation includes practical guidance for prevention, documentation, crisis resources, involving other people and helping someone at different stages of suicidality.

The final section addresses what happens after a suicide, including sadness, anger, guilt, confusion and rumination among family members, friends and coworkers. Greenagel discusses ways to support suicide-loss survivors, reduce destructive coping and help people gradually re-engage in life.

Social Isolation and the Collapse of the American Community

This presentation examines the dramatic increase in time spent alone and the decline of social capital, third spaces and in-person connection. Drawing on the work of Robert Putnam, Derek Thompson and other researchers, it explores how technology, remote life, reduced civic participation and changing social behavior have altered the way Americans spend their time and relate to one another.

The presentation connects these broader social changes to mental health, relationships, substance misuse and suicide risk while examining an important distinction: being alone is not inherently unhealthy, but prolonged isolation and the loss of meaningful relationships and community can be.

The final portion focuses on what individuals, families, workplaces and communities can actually do to rebuild connection, including strengthening relationships, creating recurring in-person activities, participating in groups and institutions and deliberately protecting time that would otherwise be spent alone or online.

Most requested presentation of 2025.

Screen Addiction: They Want to Take All of Your Time

Social media, pornography and video games are different products, but they compete for the same finite resource: human attention.

This presentation examines how these industries are designed to increase engagement and time spent online, who is most vulnerable to problematic use and how excessive screen use can affect sleep, relationships, school, work, physical activity and mental health. Particular attention is paid to children, adolescents and young adults, while distinguishing heavy use from behavior that has become genuinely harmful.

The final portion focuses on realistic interventions for individuals and families: setting limits, changing the environment, replacing rather than simply removing activities and recognizing when professional intervention may be warranted.

Online Sports Gambling and Young Males

The legalization of online sports gambling has transformed the relationship between sports and gambling in the United States. Smartphones provide nearly continuous access to betting while advertising, promotions, parlays, in-game betting and player proposition bets increasingly integrate gambling into the experience of watching sports.

This presentation examines the particular risks for teenage boys and young men, including the normalization of gambling through sports culture, risk factors for developing problems and the financial, behavioral, academic, occupational and relationship consequences that can follow. It also examines how the structure and marketing of contemporary sports betting may encourage increasingly frequent and complex forms of gambling.

The final portion focuses on what schools, colleges, families, clinicians, athletic programs and policymakers can do. This includes realistic prevention and intervention strategies as well as policy questions surrounding advertising, in-game betting, college sports, parlays and player proposition bets.

I have delivered versions of this presentation to high school and college students, fathers of high school athletes, young men in substance misuse treatment, law enforcement and military audiences, counselors and policymakers. I have also worked with New Jersey legislators on possible restrictions involving in-game betting, betting on college sports, parlays and player proposition bets.

[Read more about online sports gambling.]

The Greenagel Equations: Practical Tools for Clinical Work

This presentation teaches clinicians how to use the Greenagel Equations to help clients work on relationships, manage stress and address behaviors through easy-to-remember concepts.

The Math of Trust supports family work around building and repairing trust. Blue-Blue, Blue-Red, Red-Red helps clients examine relationship patterns. The Proportional Distress Scale, Stress Volcano and Behavior-Values Matrix provide practical ways to explore distress, accumulating stress and the relationship between behavior and values. These and the other equations can be used in individual, couples, family and group settings.

Each equation is illustrated through clinical cases. Participants can bring de-identified client situations to the discussion and explore how to apply the concepts in their own practice.

PUBLIC SAFETY, MILITARY & VETERANS

The Job Might Be Killing You: Law Enforcement, Trauma, Family and Behavioral Health

Law enforcement work affects sleep, relationships, parenting, substance use, emotional regulation, social connection, judgment and help-seeking. This presentation examines the cumulative effects of repeated exposure to death, violence, child abuse, critical incidents and organizational stress, as well as what happens when those effects follow officers home.

Drawing on a decade of counseling law enforcement personnel and their families, the presentation examines issues ranging from officer-involved shootings, fatal accidents and other critical incidents to marriage and divorce, parenting around police schedules, substance misuse, serious illness and loss. It also addresses challenges that may affect women in law enforcement, including sexual harassment, being discounted or not taken seriously and balancing professional and family demands.

The focus changes with the audience. For front-line officers, it provides practical strategies for recognizing problems and protecting their health, relationships and careers. For sergeants and lieutenants, it examines what supervisors should notice and when and how to intervene. For senior leadership, it addresses policy, organizational culture, critical-incident response and programming. For clinicians, it examines credibility, confidentiality, treatment engagement and the realities of working effectively with law enforcement personnel and their families.

Counseling in the Military and with Veterans

This presentation provides an overview of military culture, structure and stressors, with particular attention to PTSD, complex trauma, substance misuse, suicide, sexual assault, domestic violence, moral injury and chain-of-command dynamics.

Drawing on more than two decades of military service, including service as an Army National Guard Behavioral Health Officer, as well as years of counseling Veterans, the presentation examines why treating Active Duty, Guard, Reserve and Veteran populations differs from treating civilians. Particular attention is paid to credibility, stigma, identity, disclosure, confidentiality, treatment engagement and the importance of understanding how military organizations actually function.

My military service occurred during two separate periods in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Army National Guard and concluded with two Honorable Discharges. My work with Veterans has continued outside the military. Since 2020, I have facilitated an ongoing Veteran support group, remain active in the American Legion and conduct behavioral health assessments used to support Veterans pursuing VA disability claims. I also received the New Jersey Meritorious Service Medal after leaving military service.

The presentation also examines differences within the military population itself. Active Duty personnel, members of the Guard and Reserve, combat Veterans and Veterans separated from service may face different pressures and have very different relationships with military identity, leadership, family and treatment.

The presentation can also be tailored to focus on 9/11 and its aftermath, including the experiences of service members and Veterans whose military service, deployments and lives were shaped by the attacks and the wars that followed.

Includes case discussion, readings and resource guides.

SUBSTANCE MISUSE & PUBLIC POLICY

The History of Marijuana Policy in the United States (and Marijuana’s Effects on the Brain & Body)

This presentation traces the history of marijuana policy in the United States, including criminalization, the War on Drugs, medical marijuana, legalization and the subsequent commercialization of cannabis. It examines how policy, politics, industry and public attitudes have changed and considers both the intended and unintended consequences of those changes.

The presentation also reviews current research on marijuana’s effects on the brain and body, with particular attention to adolescents and young adults. It is continually updated to reflect changes in both the evidence and the marketplace, including high-potency marijuana and concentrates, vaping and carts, driving impairment and adolescent exposure. It also examines changing cultural attitudes toward marijuana, including the Marijuana Mom movement and the questions legalization creates for parents trying to establish rules and communicate risk to their children.

My work on marijuana policy extends beyond teaching and clinical practice. I have testified or presented before New Jersey legislative bodies multiple times, met with New York legislators, participated in public policy panels dating back to 2014 and consulted with municipalities considering the advantages and disadvantages of allowing marijuana sales in their communities. I have also counseled students and other clients dealing with marijuana use and its consequences.

The goal is neither to defend prohibition nor promote legalization, but to examine what the evidence shows, where uncertainty remains and what policymakers, clinicians, parents and communities should consider as marijuana policy and the commercial market continue to evolve.

Works equally well for clinicians, students, parents, community members and policymakers.

The Opiate Epidemic and the Medical Industrial Complex

The American opioid epidemic did not begin with fentanyl or even with prescription painkillers. This presentation traces the history from opium and heroin through the dramatic expansion of prescription opioids and into the current fentanyl era, examining how the epidemic changed and how decisions made by institutions helped shape it.

The presentation examines the roles of pharmaceutical companies, medicine, insurance, government, the addiction treatment industry and consumers. It considers prescribing practices, pharmaceutical marketing, inadequate professional education, barriers to effective treatment and the policy responses that followed as overdose deaths increased.

My perspective comes from more than two decades of addiction treatment, teaching, advocacy and public policy work. I served for years on New Jersey’s Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and chaired its Task Force on Heroin and Other Opiates. I advocated for stronger opioid education requirements for medical professionals and, during the rapid expansion of police Narcan programs in 2016–17, spoke with police departments throughout the tri-state area about overdose reversal and connecting people with treatment. I have also addressed these issues before policymakers and in national media.

The final portion focuses on what we have learned and what remains unresolved: prevention, professional education, evidence-based treatment, harm reduction, improved access to care and policies that better align institutional incentives with the needs of people, families and communities affected by addiction.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, Thinking and Professional Judgment

Examines how AI can improve efficiency while also weakening independent thinking, writing, decision-making and professional skill when it is used poorly. The presentation addresses over-reliance, synthetic authority, trust, accountability and how organizations can use AI without surrendering human judgment. Particular attention is paid to the difference between using AI as a tool and outsourcing reasoning to it, along with the consequences for education, management and professional work.

AI Use and Risks in Clinical Settings

This presentation examines the use of artificial intelligence in clinical settings and the emerging legal and clinical risks. It incorporates recent state legislation aimed at restricting AI from impersonating licensed professionals, along with active litigation such as Raine v. OpenAI, where AI systems are alleged to have reinforced suicidal ideation. Clinical risks include AI psychosis, over-attachment and consistent failure to manage crisis situations. For practitioners, the training addresses direct exposure risks: potential HIPAA violations when entering client information into unsecured systems; over-reliance on AI for diagnosis and documentation; and the resulting erosion of clinical judgment and skill. The session provides a clear framework for where AI may assist practice and where it creates liability. It also delves into how people are using AI for advice and how it can lead them astray.

Clinical Supervision Training and Consultation

A 12-Month Development Program for Clinical Supervisors

Organizations routinely promote strong clinicians into supervisory positions without adequately teaching them how to supervise. Knowing how to treat clients does not automatically mean someone knows how to observe another clinician, evaluate their judgment, correct mistakes, teach skills, review documentation or help another professional develop.

I define supervision as watching, training, directing, correcting and protecting workers so they perform their jobs safely, ethically, properly and efficiently. Good supervision protects clients, develops workers and protects organizations. It requires considerably more than reviewing productivity, discussing whether clients showed up or asking a supervisee how things are going.

This program is designed for 4–15 clinical supervisors and takes place over an entire year.

The Program

The program begins with a six-hour in-person training focused on the actual work of clinical supervision.

That training is followed by one hour of Zoom consultation each month for 12 months. These meetings are case-based rather than additional lectures. Supervisors bring actual situations involving their supervisees and we work through the decisions together.

Issues may include:

  • Scope of practice and determining when a clinician is working beyond their education, training or competence
  • Countertransference and how a clinician’s emotional reactions affect treatment
  • Observing clinicians during individual and group sessions
  • Turning observation into specific, useful feedback
  • Case presentations and caseload review
  • Reviewing progress notes, treatment plans and other clinical documentation
  • Teaching clinicians how to write rather than simply correcting their paperwork
  • Diagnosing and case conceptualization
  • Helping clinicians recognize when they do not know something
  • Teaching staff when to consult, refer or recommend a higher level of care
  • Giving corrective feedback and addressing repeated mistakes
  • Managing difficult or defensive supervisees
  • Ethics, confidentiality and professional boundaries
  • Workload and caseload management
  • Training and professional development
  • Recognizing countertransference, cynicism, irritability, detachment and other signs of burnout
  • Developing clinicians who can eventually work with greater independence

The goal is to examine decisions, not simply track activity. That distinction is particularly important when supervisors are dealing with complex cases, inexperienced clinicians or workers whose judgment may be affected by their own history, emotions or professional limitations.

Observation Matters

Clinical supervision should not depend entirely on what a supervisee reports about their own work.

Supervisors should learn how to observe individual and group work, review cases, examine documentation and identify problems that may never appear during ordinary supervision. A worker may have difficulty controlling a group, miss important clinical information, drift outside their scope, become overly invested in a client or repeatedly make the same documentation errors without recognizing the pattern.

Good supervisors teach through observation, feedback, repetition and modeling. Supervisees should also have opportunities to observe experienced clinicians and supervisors so they can develop their own professional style. Greenagel Counseling Services

Scope of Practice, Countertransference and Professional Development

These are three areas I repeatedly return to in supervision.

Supervisors need to know the limits of both their own scope and the scope of the people they supervise. They need to recognize when countertransference is influencing clinical decisions. They also need to actively develop workers rather than simply manage their current workload.

That development can include improving assessment and diagnostic skills, learning to run groups, writing better reports, conducting trainings, obtaining additional credentials and gaining experience with different populations and types of cases. Good supervision should make clinicians better over time.

Burnout

Burnout is also a supervision issue.

Supervisors should notice irritability, cynicism, over-identification with clients, rescue fantasies, excessive detachment, rule rigidity and emotional numbing. Prevention involves reasonable caseloads, a clear scope of practice, access to consultation, time off and quality supervision.

Monthly consultation allows supervisors to discuss these problems while they are happening rather than waiting until a clinician quits, commits an ethical violation or reaches a crisis.

Optional In-Person Follow-Up Trainings

Organizations may add four-hour in-person follow-up trainings at the 3-, 6- and/or 12-month marks.

These sessions provide substantially more time than the monthly Zoom consultation for questions, case discussion and additional training based on problems that have emerged within the organization.

Possible topics include scope of practice, countertransference, staff training, direct observation, individual and group counseling, documentation, treatment planning, difficult supervisees, professional development and burnout.

Fee: $3,000 per four-hour follow-up training, plus travel and lodging when necessary.

Program Fee

$12,000

Includes:

  • Six-hour in-person training
  • 4–15 clinical supervisors
  • Twelve monthly one-hour Zoom supervision consultation meetings
  • Case-based consultation throughout the year

Optional four-hour in-person follow-up trainings are $3,000 each, plus travel and lodging when necessary.

Related Writing

Do Not Pick A Job, Pick A Supervisor
My broader approach to supervision, including observation, documentation, scope of practice, countertransference, professional development, ethics and burnout.

Supervision of Peers
An examination of supervision in peer work, including scope of practice, personal experience, countertransference, case review, professional development and the difference between meaningful supervision and simply tracking activity.

References available upon request.