Training In CBT & Other Evidence-Based Psychological Therapies
Introduction
A huge amount of time, effort and resources are invested in training clinicians to deliver the most effective available therapies to patients with a range of mental health difficulties. Supervision can assist in the development and maintenance of all of these skills. Strong clinical research has been used to support and extend those therapies, allowing us to work more effectively and with wider groups of people, while also telling us where further improvement is essential.
And yet we see therapists who do not engage with the evidence, do not undertake the training, and do not consider their clinical outcomes. Worse, we see clinicians who let all those skills slip away. Clinicians who prioritise their individual (and sometimes idiosyncratic) clinical judgement, even where evidence-based methods are much more effective for their patients.
Why do we see this pattern of therapist drift? And what can we do about it?
The event will be equivalent to 2 hrs of CPD.
Content
The session will be focused on detailing therapist drift, understanding why we drift, and considering strategies for reducing drift. Critically (because no therapy is perfect), it will consider how we can be strategic about improving our therapies - building a better evidence base and set of therapy options into the future.
Reasons for therapist drift will be reviewed with attendees, including our lack of up-to-date knowledge, our personalities, our beliefs, and our own anxiety. All of these will affect whether we are a ‘romantic’ or an ‘empiricist’ when it comes to how we deliver therapy, and hence will affect clinical outcomes. We might even talk about how everyone would love to just jump into a helicopter and fly it, rather than taking all those tedious lessons. And we will definitely be discussing Christmas tree decorations.
We will address examples of drift that attendees have experienced in their own practice, or that they have seen, and use them to understand why drift happens.
Looking to the future, we will consider how we can stop drifting in our clinical work. Finally, we will explore how we could all be weird clinicians, coming up with new ways of working that advance the field, by being systematic in our clinical work and making it into great clinical research.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify the value of evidence-based approaches to treatment over judgement-based approaches.
2. Identify our own patterns of therapist drift.
3. Consider how we deliver and use supervision.
4. Plan to be more strategic in developing our therapies where existing approaches are not enough.
Training Modalities
Didactic content, case examples from the attendees, Q&A.
Key References
Lilienfeld, S. O., Ritschel, L. A., Lynn, S. J., Cautin, R. L., & Latzman, R. D. (2013). Why many clinical psychologists are resistant to evidence-based practice: root causes and constructive remedies. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(7), 883–900. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.008
Meehl, P. E. (1954). Clinical versus statistical prediction: A theoretical analysis and a review of the evidence. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/11281-000
Speers, A. J. H., Bhullar, N., Cosh, S., & Wootton, B. M. (2022). Correlates of therapist drift in psychological practice: A systematic review of therapist characteristics. Clinical Psychology Review, 93, 102132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2022.102132
Waller G. (2009). Evidence-based treatment and therapist drift. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47(2), 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2008.10.018
Waller, G., & Turner, H. (2016). Therapist drift redux: Why well-meaning clinicians fail to deliver evidence-based therapy, and how to get back on track. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 77, 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2015.12.005
About the presenter
Glenn Waller is a Professor of Clinical Psychology. His clinical and academic specialisms are evidence-based CBT for eating disorders, and why clinicians drift from effective treatment. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, 20 book chapters and five books in the field. He regularly presents workshops at national and international meetings. He is past president of the international Academy for Eating Disorders and of the Eating Disorders Research Society. He was a member of the NICE Eating Disorders Guideline Development Group, responsible for the 2017 update to the eating disorders guideline.
Who should attend
Suitable for any clinician who is delivering psychological therapies, regardless of profession, age of patient group, etc. If you have been practicing for years (well, more than one year) and you think that you do not need to reflect on this material, you will probably benefit more than most.