Bespoke Members
Introduction
People with intellectual disabilities suffer from higher rates of clinically significant mental health problems than the general population. However, their communicative and cognitive difficulties can make it more difficult for them to access commonly used talking therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Specialist practitioners make adaptations to therapeutic approaches they use with people who have intellectual disabilities, sometimes in idiosyncratic ways, to try and ensure that the approaches are sufficiently engaging. Unfortunately, mainstream therapists usually lack confidence to apply their skills to working with people who have intellectual disabilities. This workshop will draw on growing evidence about ways of effectively adapting talking therapies to make them more accessible for people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. Evidence has also emerged from clinical trials of manualised approaches developed specifically for people with intellectual disabilities, including work with people who have more severe and profound intellectual disabilities.
The event will be equivalent to 2.3/4hrs of CPD.
Content
This workshop will outline adaptations that can be made to talking therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help ensure that they are meaningful for people with intellectual disabilities. Consideration will be given to ways of achieving change that have a positive impact on people’s quality of life. Finally, emerging innovative therapeutic approaches for people with more severe and profound intellectual disabilities will be introduced.
Topics covered will include:
• Communication and mutual understanding
• Addressing cognitive challenges
• Involving significant others in therapy
• Scaffolding engagement – finding ways of helping people play an active role in therapy
• Maintaining a shared focus for therapeutic work
• Addressing stigma and other real world challenges
• Working towards lasting change
• Therapy beyond words – working with people who have more severe and profound intellectual disabilities
Learning Objectives
The aim of this workshop is to help participants to:
1. Develop a greater awareness of the communicative and cognitive barriers to participating in talking therapies and strategies for overcoming them.
2. Recognise the need to take account of systemic factors and the particular life experience of people with intellectual disabilities, when delivering psychological therapies.
3. Have an understanding of how work in therapy sessions can be generalised to people’s everyday lives, in order to achieve meaningful change.
4. Insight into new developments, offering psychological therapies to people with more severe and profound intellectual disabilities.
Training Modalities
This workshop will include didactic teaching, reflections, video of therapy, and Q&A.
Key References
Dagnan, Dave, Lara Taylor, and Christine-Koulla Burke. "Adapting cognitive behaviour therapy for people with intellectual disabilities: an overview for therapist working in mainstream or specialist services." The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist 16 (2023): e3.
Jahoda, A., Stenfert Kroese, B. and Pert C. (2017) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for People with Intellectual Disabilities: Thinking creatively. Palgrave MacMillan. Doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-47854-2
Jahoda, Andrew, Dave Dagnan, Richard Hastings, Amanda Gillooly, Jenny Miller, Susie Baines, and Chris Hatton. "Adapting psychological interventions for people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities: A behavioural activation exemplar." Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 37, no. 2 (2024): e13199.
Pert, C., Jahoda, A., Stenfert Kroese, B., Trower, P., Dagnan, D., & Selkirk, M. (2013). Cognitive behavioural therapy from the perspective of clients with mild intellectual disabilities: a qualitative investigation of process issues. Journal of intellectual disability research, 57(4), 359-369.
Poku, Andrew C., Kylie M. Gray, Olivia Hewitt, and Peter E. Langdon. "Adapting Psychological Therapies for Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review." Clinical psychology & psychotherapy 33, no. 1 (2026): e70202.
Smith, I. C., Huws, J. C., Appleton, K., Cooper, S. A., Dagnan, D., Hastings, R. P., ... & Jahoda, A. (2021). The experiences of therapists providing psychological treatment for adults with depression and intellectual disabilities as part of a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 34(6), 1442-1451.
About the presenter
Andrew Jahoda is Professor of Learning Disabilities at the School of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow, and he also works as a clinical psychologist in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. One if his main research interests is about increasing access to psychological therapies for people with intellectual disabilities. This includes work on adapting CBT, anger management, behavioural activation and guided self-help approaches. More recent work has concerned the development of psychological therapies for people with more severe and profound intellectual disabilities, who are unable to benefit from talking therapies.
Who should attend
This workshop is suitable for anyone delivering psychological therapies to people with intellectual disabilities or who may be interested in extending their practice to offer help to people with intellectual disabilities. This might include psychologists, high and low intensity practitioners nurse therapists, counsellors, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, and social workers.