Series of Live Online Seminars on CBT for Psychosis - Recovery from "Schizophrenia" and other "Psychotic Disorders"

The core idea of cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is that therapists can help people learn to change what they think and do, and then by making these changes, psychological problems can shrink or be eliminated.

Over 50 randomized studies of CBT for psychosis (CBTp) have now been completed, and they show that people experiencing psychosis can learn to reduce distress and disability using these methods. And those who have made complete recoveries after being diagnosed with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia often credit learning to change thoughts and behaviors in the same ways that are promoted by CBTp.

One very affordable way to learn more about CBTp will be a series of 5 online seminars which will be starting on 5/13/22. The instructor, Ron Unger, LCSW, has two decades of experience as a CBTp therapist, therapy supervisor, and teacher. All 5 seminars are available for a discounted price of only $299.99 until 4/22/22, or $349.99 thereafter. Use this link to register for those 5 seminars as a bundle.

For registrations using the above link, 30% of the registration fee will go directly to ISPS-US.

Registration for individual seminars is also available. If you are registering for an individual seminar, be sure to enter the coupon code ISPS-US% This will give you an additional $5 discount and will also insure that 30% of your registration fee will go to ISPS-US. Using that coupon code of ISPS-US%, the price for the individual seminars is $84.99 until 3 weeks prior to each seminar, then $104.99.

4 hours of Continuing Education Credit for many US professionals is provided for each seminar: for information on that please go to this link and scroll downward to find CE information. The CE Credit offered is the same for each seminar.

Schedule:

Each seminar will be from 8:30am-12:30pm Pacific Time / 11:300-3:30pm Eastern Time

Date: 5/13/22 Essential Elements of CBT for Psychosis: Engagement Style, Normalizing, & Developing a Formulation

Date: 6/10/22 Paranoia and Troublesome Beliefs: A CBT Approach

Date: 7/8/22 Voices, Visions, and Other Altered Perceptions: Changing Outcomes with CBT

Date: 8/12/22 Trauma, Dissociation, and Psychosis: CBT and Other Approaches to Understanding and Recovery

Date: 9/23/22 Addressing Spiritual and Cultural Issues Within Treatment for Psychosis

Description of each seminar:

Essential Elements of CBT for Psychosis: Engagement Style, Normalizing, Developing a Formulation

This seminar explores and offers practice in the fundamentals of CBT for psychosis. Questions will be discussed such as, how is it possible to engage collaboratively in exploring experiences with people whose view of reality is radically different from your own? How can providers realistically offer hope to people who may feel their mind is broken?

One CBT method that conveys hope and facilitates engagement is that of normalizing. Framing psychotic experiences as extreme versions of normal reactions “puts them on the map” of healthy human functioning and allows people to consider transitioning to less extreme approaches. Once experiences are understood in a normalized way, it is then possible to follow up by helping people map out or develop formulations about what is happening. These formulations then can be used to develop specific suggestions about what might be done to effect change.

Learning Objectives:
· List four key elements of a collaborative engagement style consistent with CBT for psychosis, and demonstrate this style in practice
· Apply the practice of normalizing while discussing psychotic experiences
· Based on descriptions of psychotic experiences, create CBT formulations which map out what may be happening and what might be changed to “shrink” the problem

Paranoia and Troublesome Beliefs: A CBT Approach

In an increasingly polarized world, more are noticing how difficult it can be to talk to someone whose beliefs are quite different from our own. It can be even more difficult when trust is broken, and paranoia is strong.

In this seminar, the focus will be on establishing helpful conversations with people whose paranoia and extremely different beliefs have led to a diagnosis of psychosis. Rather than a “one size fits all” approach, the emphasis will be on finding a method that works for an individual as that person exists in the current moment. While “reviewing the evidence” and helping the person challenge the belief may sometimes be effective, at other times it may work better to simply accept the belief and to find ways to live successfully while holding it. And at other times, the best approach might be understanding the belief as an indicator of underlying conflicts or vulnerabilities that need to be addressed before the belief can change.

Learning Objectives:
· Describe the possible functions of paranoia in the formation of troublesome beliefs or delusions
· Identify 4 different but complementary approaches to reducing disturbances due to troublesome beliefs
· Demonstrate how to collaboratively explore evidence for and against an apparently delusional belief

Voices, Visions, and Other Altered Perceptions: Changing Outcomes with CBT

We depend on our senses for accurate information about the world, but for many people, a significant portion of what they experience as sensory information has no apparent basis in our shared world. One might suspect this would always lead to trouble, yet, research in the last quarter century shows that only some of the people who hear voices and see visions have significant problems from these experiences; others seem to get on with their lives successfully.

What makes the difference? One huge factor is how people interpret and relate to these experiences. This training will explore CBT methods of shifting from often unproductive or even counterproductive attempts to eliminate “hallucinations,” to constructive ways of coping. With this change in relationship, experiences like voices may fade, become less troublesome, or even shift into something the person experiences as an overall positive in their lives.

A special area of focus will be the problem of compliance with command voices. Patterns of compliance with command voices dramatically increase the risk of self harm and other destructive behavior; we will review and practice CBT approaches which have been shown to be effective in significantly reducing such compliance.

Learning Objectives:
· Use an acceptance and commitment therapy approach to help people change relationships with voices, visions, and other “hallucinations.”
· Identify relationships between problems with voices and with difficult emotions, allowing attention to shift to facing core issues and schemas
· Utilize a proven CBT strategy to help people reduce even partial or imagined compliance with command voices

Trauma, Dissociation, and Psychosis: CBT and Other Approaches to Understanding and Recovery

A large number of studies now provide strong evidence that psychosis is often an understandable reaction to trauma, abuse, and other difficult life experiences. This training will introduce you to a science based yet humanistic conceptualization of extreme human experiences that can be related to trauma, and will demonstrate how to help people change their relationship with these experiences, for example, by collaborating with them in building coherent and compassionate self narratives that can set the stage for a strong recovery.

Dissociation can be a normal response to traumatic stress and can, in its more extreme forms and when misinterpreted, easily lead to psychosis. Drawing on this understanding, the possibility of addressing dissociation and misinterpretations of dissociation using methods drawn from diverse sources such as CBT, the Hearing Voices Movement, mindfulness, and psychodynamic approaches will be presented. These approaches can help people to regain perspective and personal power and create an opportunity to resolve internal conflicts rather than remaining stuck in endless efforts to suppress whatever is disturbing them.

Learning Objectives:
· Identify possible interrelationships between trauma, dissociation, and psychosis, including ways that psychosis itself, and reactions to psychosis by others, can be traumatizing
· Describe a possible causal route from trauma to psychotic experiences, and describe the role of dissociation within that process
· Plan to integrate CBT for psychosis with various trauma therapies to effectively treat clients who have experienced both trauma and psychosis
· Demonstrate a collaborate approach to helping clients develop coherent and compassionate stories of trauma and recovery which provide an alternative to both fragmented “psychotic” stories, and to helplessness-inducing “mental illness” stories.

Addressing Spiritual and Cultural Issues Within Treatment for Psychosis

There is not just one way of making sense of reality; instead, each culture or even each subculture goes about it differently. Further, many or even most people affirm beliefs in various “spiritual” aspects of reality that transcend everyday experiences. But this leads to the question: how are we to distinguish healthy diversity in culture and spirituality, from that which is pathological or “psychotic?”

One approach to this question is to assert that if a way of making sense is common in a culture, then it is sane and acceptable, while if it is unique, then it is pathological. While this approach makes room for diversity that is well established in large social groups, it continues to risk pathologizing possibly healthy innovations made by individuals.

This training will explore how CBT for psychosis can be practiced in a flexible way to adopt to cultural and spiritual differences, allowing for collaborative and respectful explorations of both the possible value as well as dangers of various ways of approaching reality. Based on such explorations, people can discover their own paths to a healthy integration and a path forward in their lives.

Learning Objectives:
•             Demonstrate the ability to adopt CBT for psychosis approaches to meet the needs of individuals from varying cultural groups
•             Explain the role of cultural humility, and an awareness of the uncertainty of one’s own knowledge, in respectful and effective therapy for psychosis
•             Utilize cultural competence in addressing spiritual issues within a recovery oriented approach to psychosis while working with individuals from a variety of traditions and subcultures

A review of the options for registration:

All 5 seminars are available for a discounted price of only $299.99 until 4/22/22, or $349.99 thereafter. Use this link to register for those 5 seminars as a bundle.

For registrations using the links and discount codes listed in this email, 30% of the registration fee will go directly to ISPS-US.