Workshop Program 2023

The AACBT National Conference Committee is pleased to be hosting our workshops on Saturday 21 October 2023.

InterContinental Sydney, Double Bay (NSW)

Full-day workshop tickets (Persons):

AACBT Student Member $110, AACBT Member $295**/$325, Non-member $455

1/2-day workshop tickets (Craske [9:00am] or Wild [1:30pm]):

AACBT Student Member $55, AACBT Member $150**/$165, Non-member $230

Tickets are on sale now!

** Early bird pricing until 31 August 2023

  • Contact AACBT via email if you have a group of 5+ for discounts

REGISTER via the ticketing page here

(use the drop down arrow on the main ticketing page to select your workshop)

We would like to thank our workshop supporter insurance.com.au!

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Workshop options:

Professor Jacqueline B. Persons (full day), or

Professor Michelle G. Craske (1/2-day, starting at 9:00am)

Professor Jennifer Wild (1/2-day, starting at 1:30pm)


Jacqueline B. Persons

Director, Oakland CBT Center, Oakland, CA and Clinical Professor, Dept of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley

The case formulation approach to cognitive behaviour therapy

FULL-DAY WORKSHOP

Would you like to learn some skills for developing personalized formulations of your cases that will help you address cultural and other diversity, select treatment targets, and solve problems that arise in treatment?

The case formulation approach to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) calls for clinicians to develop a cognitive-behavioural formulation of each case they are treating, use the formulation to guide the process of setting treatment goals and intervening to help the client accomplish their goals, and monitor the client’s progress in every session. Case formulation-guided CBT offers an evidence-based approach to individualizing treatment to address each client’s unique situation, including the client’s cultural background and treatment goals.

Jacqueline will introduce clinicians to some of the basic skills of a case formulation approach to CBT and will provide strategies and tools to help clinicians implement it in their clinical practice. Attendees will have the opportunity to practice developing some formulation hypotheses for their clients.

 

Key learning objectives:

  1. Develop a comprehensive Problem List for their clients
  2. Develop some formulation hypotheses for their clients
  3. Collect progress monitoring data and use them to guide treatment

 

References and readings:

 

Event detail:

This event is a full-day workshop from 9am-5pm, with 7 hours CPD.

The ticket includes all catering – morning and afternoon tea plus lunch – include your dietary requirements when you book your ticket.

Preview material of Jacqueline speaking.

 


Michelle G. Craske

University of California, Los Angeles

Treatment for anhedonia in the context of depression and anxiety

1/2-DAY WORKSHOP

This workshop will present a new treatment for anhedonia, that targets improvements in the anticipation, savouring and learning of rewarding experiences and positive emotions.

Threat and reward sensitivity are fundamental processes that become dysregulated in the context of vulnerability to, or expression of, anxiety and depression. Treatments have traditionally targeted reductions in threat sensitivity with limited effects upon reward mechanisms. Investigation of reward sensitivity is essential for our understanding of psychopathology and for targeted treatment approaches. Michelle will present her latest findings regarding neural, behavioural and subjective features of reward hyposensitivity (specifically in domains of reward anticipation-motivation, response to reward attainment, and reward learning) that correlate with and predict anxiety, depression and anhedonia. These findings led her team to develop a treatment that specifically targets reward hyposensitivity, termed Positive Affect Treatment, which we have shown to be more effective than standard cognitive behavioural therapy for anxious and depressed individuals.

Michelle will present their most recent replication study in anxious, depressed and extremely low positive affect individuals, where the symptomatic outcomes occur in parallel with changes in target measures of reward anticipation-motivation and attainment to a greater degree than occurs with standard cognitive behavioural therapy. The remainder of the workshop will cover the step-by-step details of Positive Affect Treatment, accompanied by video demonstrations.

 

Key learning objectives:

  1. Understand the role of reward hyposensitivity in anhedonia, depression and anxiety
  2. Understand the evidence for the efficacy of Positive Affect Treatment for anhedonia
  3. Gain familiarity with the principles and procedures of Positive Affect Treatment

 

References and readings:

 

Event detail:

This event is a 1/2-day workshop, with 3 hours CPD.

The ticket includes lunch and break catering – include your dietary requirements when you book your ticket.

Preview material of Michelle speaking.

 


Jennifer Wild

University of Melbourne

Cognitive Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

1/2-DAY WORKSHOP

This workshop will build on Ehlers and Clark’s (2000) cognitive model of PTSD. The workshop will demonstrate how to deliver core interventions of CT-PTSD face-to-face and remotely, including how to update memories, carry out trigger discrimination and design highly effective behavioural experiments.

Cognitive therapy is rooted in the idea that whilst people may face gritty times, it is the meaning they make of them that matters.  A patient’s symptoms, emotions, and behaviours are seen as inextricably linked to their thinking.  CT-PTSD is based on a robust cognitive model that identifies three core processes that keep the disorder going (Ehlers & Clark, 2000). The treatment aims to modify these processes through intervention that targets trauma memories, triggers, and unhelpful behaviours and thoughts. Updating painful meanings linked to the trauma memory with information that addresses relevant cognitive themes is a key part of the treatment. Cognitive themes typically relate to anger, shame, guilt, betrayal, overgeneralised danger, loss, moral injury or permanent change.  CT-PTSD is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and numerous international guidelines as a first line treatment for the disorder. The treatment leads to high rates of recovery, is often described as life-changing, can be delivered in about 10 to 12 sessions and easily adapted for remote delivery during pandemic-working.

 

Key learning objectives:

  1. Use the Ehlers and Clark cognitive model to understand PTSD and develop an individual formulation for patients
  2. Identify core cognitive themes and ways of working with them
  3. Describe ways of integrating updated meanings into trauma memories
  4. Describe steps in transforming images of loss and permanent change
  5. Identify ways of changing responses to triggers of reexperiencing
  6. Identify ways of adapting procedures to working remotely

 

References and readings:

  • Wild, J., Duffy, M., & Ehlers, A. (2023).  Moving forward with the loss of a loved one: Treating PTSD following traumatic bereavement.  The Cognitive Behaviour Therapisthttps://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X23000041
  • 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
  • Beierl, E., Murray, H., Wiedemann, M., Warnock-Parkes, E., Wild, J., Stott, R., Grey, N., Clark, D.M. & Ehlers, A. (2021).  The Relationship Between Working Alliance and Symptom Improvement in Cognitive Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.  Front Psychiatry, 12, 602648. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.602648
  • Ehlers, A. & Clark, D.M. (2000).  A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38, 319-345.
  • Ehlers, A. & Wild, J. (2021). Cognitive behavior therapies for posttraumatic stress disorder. In A. Wenzel (Ed.), Handbook of cognitive behavioral therapy: Applications (pp. 99–147). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000219-004
  • 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
  • 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 Therapist0, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1754470X2000015X

 

Event detail:

This event is a 1/2-day workshop, with 3 hours CPD.

The ticket includes lunch and break catering – include your dietary requirements when you book your ticket.

 

Preview material of Jennifer speaking.

 


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