Can’t attend the live streamed version of this workshop? All of our workshops are also available as pre-recorded on-demand videos that you can watch when you want. All are available 10 working days after the live date presentation for up to one year.
Introduction
On May 31st, 2024, Prof. Anke Ehlers will deliver a full-day workshop on cognitive therapy for post traumatic stress disorder.
Workshop Outline
Cognitive therapy is rooted in the idea that clients' symptoms, emotions, and behaviour are understandable, arising from perceptions they hold of themselves and the world and what they make of these perceptions. CT-PTSD is a trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy (TF-CBT), recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment for PTSD (NICE, 2018) and international treatment guidelines (APA, 2017; ISTSS, 2019). A key part of this treatment to change the meanings of the worst moments of trauma in memory and work on triggers of reexperiencing.
This workshop builds on Ehlers and Clark’s (2000) cognitive model of PTSD. This model suggests that people with PTSD perceive a serious internal or external current threat that has two sources; excessively negative appraisals (personal meanings) of the trauma and/or its aftermath; characteristics of trauma memories that lead to re-experiencing symptoms. The problem is maintained by cognitive strategies (such as thought suppression, rumination, safety-seeking behaviours) that are intended to reduce the perceived current threat, but actually maintain the problem by preventing change in the appraisals and trauma memory. The workshop will describe how to deliver core interventions of CT-PTSD, including updating memories, trigger discrimination and behavioural experiments, and present video illustrations.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, attendees will be able to:
1. Use Ehlers and Clark’s cognitive model to understand PTSD and develop an individual formulation for patients
2. Identify ways of accessing and changing threatening meanings of trauma in PTSD
3. Identify ways of integrating changed meanings into trauma memories.
4. Identify ways of changing responses to triggers of reexperiencing.
5. Identify ways of adapting procedures to working remotely.
About the Presenter
Anke Ehlers is Professor of Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Oxford. Professor Ehlers is Co-Director of the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.
The cognitive therapy programme for PTSD developed by her group has been shown to be highly acceptable to patients and very effective. It has been successfully disseminated to provide effective treatment services for victims of the bombings in Omagh and London, and to National Health Service clinics in the UK. Current research projects investigate whether the treatment can be delivered more efficiently, and what the mechanisms of treatment are.
Professor Ehlers is also a Fellow of the British Academy, The Academy of Medical Sciences, the Association for Psychological Science, and an elected Member of German National Academy of Scientists Leopoldina and the Academia Europaea, and a recipient of the 2022 ISTSS Lifetime Achievement Award.
Training Modalities
This workshop will include didactic teaching and videos with some experiential elements and Q&A.
Who should attend
CBT practitioners who treat people with PTSD
Continuing Education (CE) Credits
Bespoke Mental Health Canada is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. Bespoke Mental Health Canada maintains responsibility for the program.
After viewing this workshop live on May 31st , 2024, participants have the option to complete an evaluation form in order to be eligible to receive a certificate confirming the number of credits awarded. This certificate will be sent via email.
Participants who view this workshop as a pre-recorded event will need to complete an additional workshop knowledge quiz in order to be eligible to receive CE credits.
Participants who complete this workshop are eligible to receive 6 CE credits.
Fees
Professionals: $175 CAD +tax
Students*: $140 CAD +tax
* Proof of student status may be required in order to qualify for a student rate.
Key References
Ehlers, A. & Clark, D.M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38 319-345.
Ehlers, A., & Wild, J. (2020). Cognitive therapy for PTSD. In L. F. Bufka, C. V. Wright, & R. W. Halfond (Eds.), Casebook to the APA Clinical Practice Guideline for the treatment of PTSD (p.91-121). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000196-005
Ehlers, A., Wild, J., Warnock-Parkes, E., Grey, N., Murray, H., Kerr, A., Rozental, A., Thew, G., Janecka, M., Beierl, E.T. and Tsiachristas, A. (2023). Therapist-assisted online psychological therapies differing in trauma focus for post-traumatic stress disorder (STOP-PTSD): a UK-based, single-blind, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Psychiatry, 10(8), pp.608-622.
Murray, H., Wild, J., Warnock-Parkes, E., Kerr, A., Thew, G., Grey, N., Clark, D.M. & Ehlers, A. (2020). Cognitive therapy for PTSD following critical illness and intensive care unit admission. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X2000015X
Wiedemann, M., Janecka, M., Wild, J., Warnock-Parkes, E., Stott, R., Grey, N., Clark, D.M. & Ehlers, A. (2023). Changes in cognitive processes and coping strategies precede changes in symptoms during cognitive therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, p.104407.
Wild, J., Warnock-Parkes, E., Murray, H., Kerr, A., Thew, G., Grey, N., Clark, D.M. & Ehlers, A. (2020). Treating posttraumatic stress disorder remotely with Cognitive Therapy for PTSD. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11:1, 1785818 doi: 10.1080/20008198.2020.1785818
More information coming soon.