CBT@Home webinar series
Dr David Preece, Curtin University
This approx. 58min CBT@Home webinar was recorded in December 2022 and is the presentation of his address as the 2022 AACBT Early Career award winner. AACBT members can view for free. Non-members may purchase here.
Do you have clients that have difficulty understanding and talking about their emotions? This presentation will go through recent advances in the understanding, assessment, and treatment of alexithymia (emotion processing deficits) and how to integrate alexithymia work effectively into CBT.
Alexithymia is a trait characterised by difficulties processing and describing one’s own emotions. First coined by American psychiatrists in the 1970s, alexithymia has since been established as an important transdiagnostic risk factor for the development and maintenance of a range of psychopathologies. Alexithymia can also interfere with the therapy process. In this webinar, Dr David Preece describes recent advances in the understanding, assessment, and treatment of alexithymia from a CBT perspective. This presentation will cover:
- A cognitive behavioural model of alexithymia (Preece et al., 2017), and the key role that alexithymia can play in emotion regulation problems and the treatment of emotional disorders.
- The psychometric assessment of alexithymia, with a particular focus on the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (Preece et al., 2018).
- Core techniques to improve alexithymia in clients and account for emotion processing deficits so that these difficulties do not interfere with the therapy process.
Biographical notes:
Dr David Preece is a Clinical Psychologist and Academic. He is a Clinical Lecturer at Curtin University, an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, an Honorary Research Associate at Telethon Kids Institute, and a Director at the Psychology Centre of Western Australia. His main research and practice interests are in transdiagnostic approaches to assessing, conceptualising, and treating emotional disorders. Much of his research focuses on the key role that emotional awareness (alexithymia) and emotion regulation difficulties play in a variety of mental health issues. David is the Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Emotion and Psychopathology, a Review Editor at Frontiers in Psychiatry, and Consulting Editor at Emotion. He has won a number of awards for his work, including the 2022 Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy Tracy Goodall Early Career Award, the 2022 Australian Psychological Society Early Career Research Award, and the 2019 Australian Psychological Society Award for Excellent PhD Thesis in Psychology.
Key Learning Objectives:
- Understand what alexithymia is, its causes, how it is conceptualised within the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia and process model of emotion regulation, and its links with emotion regulation and emotional disorders
- Understand how to use and interpret the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire in alexithymia assessments
- Understand how to apply CBT techniques to address the underdeveloped emotion schemas and emotional avoidance that underlies alexithymia
Select readings:
- Preece, D. A., Mehta, A., Petrova, K., Sikka, P., Bjureberg, J., Becerra, R., & Gross, J. J. (2022). Alexithymia and emotion regulation. Journal of Affective Disorders.
- Preece, D. A., Mehta, A., Becerra, R., Chen, W., Allan, A., Robinson, K., … & Gross, J. J. (2022). Why is alexithymia a risk factor for affective disorder symptoms? The role of emotion regulation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 296, 337-341.
- Preece, D., Becerra, R., Allan, A., Robinson, K., & Dandy, J. (2017). Establishing the theoretical components of alexithymia via factor analysis: Introduction and validation of the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia. Personality and individual differences, 119, 341-352.
- Preece, D. A., Becerra, R., Allan, A., Robinson, K., Chen, W., Hasking, P., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Assessing alexithymia: psychometric properties of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire and 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale in United States adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 166, 110138.
- Preece, D. A., Becerra, R., Boyes, M. E., Northcott, C., McGillivray, L., & Hasking, P. A. (2020). Do self-report measures of alexithymia measure alexithymia or general psychological distress? A factor analytic examination across five samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 155, 109721.