36th BABCP Annual Conference, University of Edinburgh 16th-19th July 2008

Pre Conference Workshop (15th July).

CBT for inpatient and crisis settings; a newly developed CBT approach to enable the individual to make sense of crisis, and enhance the milieu.

Isabel Clarke and Dr. Hannah Wilson.

Background.

The individual hospitalized in crisis has a need to make sense of their situation. Staff in the institution struggle with low morale in the face of increasing pressures and expectations. This workshop demonstrates how these challenges have been met and evaluated by the psychological therapies department at Woodhaven, employing CBT.  We will introduce our third wave CBT approach to brief therapy, comprising emotional focused formulation, leading to skills and group work: also approaches to staff training, reflective practice and care planning support that have been shown to disseminate and promote CBT principles in the inpatient unit, for the benefit of our service users. The approach draws on Clarke’s ICS approach to therapy for severe mental health problems (Clarke 1999), and generalises Linehan’s skills training (Linehan 1993).  

The publication of the pilot evaluation (Durrant et al 2007), and papers presented at the Inpatient Symposia at Barcelona and Brighton BABCP (2006) have generated considerable interest in the approach. It features prominently in the book on Inpatient CBT, edited by us, to appear in July 2008 (Clarke & Wilson, forthcoming). The approach is equally relevant to all work in teams with people in crisis or with major mental health problems, e.g. crisis and assertive outreach teams.

We are both experienced at running highly interactive and successful workshops, both locally and further afield.

Objectives

• Understanding of our cross diagnostic, “Third Wave” approach to individual work with people in crisis, and its evaluation
• To be able to use this to formulate a case of someone in crisis using the Woodhaven brief CBT approach.
• Understand the cognitive science based (ICS) rationale behind the intervention.
• Extend this to a deeper understanding of psychopathology, and an innovative approach to psychosis.

• To be able to devise effective, CBT informed, staff training and staff consultation systems, informed by this approach.

Training Mode

Didactic; using power point and demonstration role play, with a strong emphasis on discussion and interaction.

Participatory; including role play, group clinical exercises using vignettes etc.