Courses – Congress of Psychotherapy

International Federation for Psychotherapy 23^rd World Congress of Psychotherapy

“Psychotherapy and World Mental Health 2023”

9-11 February 2023, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University Hassan II,

Casablanca, Morocco

The following courses will be offered to conference registrants on Day 1 of the congress (9 February 2023). Courses 1-4 will be offered in parallel rooms from 09:00-12:00 and Courses 5-7 from 14:00-17:00. Conference participants will be able to pre-register in advance and select up to two courses to secure attendance.

Course 1. Fundamentals of Supportive Psychotherapy

Course Directors:

Erin Crocker

Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry,

Psychiatry Residency Training Director,

University of Iowa, Health Care, USA.

Randon Welton

Margaret Clark Morgan Endowed Chair of Psychiatry,

Northeast Ohio Medical University, USA.

Course Description:

This 3-hour course will be conducted in English. It will be interactive and open to up to 75 participants. The target audience will be early to mid-career psychotherapists as well as students and trainees. Course faculty members are cognizant that psychotherapy training is limited in many low-and-middle-income countries and this course is meant to bridge such resource discrepancies.

Educational objectives include identifying and mastering the common factors that are curative in all psychotherapies and understanding the importance of supportive psychotherapy interventions across all treatment settings. The common factors include empathy, expression and regulation of affect, validation, support, mentalization, and forming a therapeutic alliance.

The course objective is to increase knowledge and competence in the delivery of supportive psychotherapy. Faculty members will present principles and practical applications of supportive psychotherapy in general psychiatric practice settings such as inpatient, outpatient, Emergency Room (ER), general hospital Consultation-Liaison (CL), and addiction psychiatry settings. Particular attention will be given to cultural adaptations and optimizing services in high volume clinical settings. Attendees will have opportunities to gain practical, hands-on experience in applying the skills learned through interactive Q&A sessions.

Course 2. Fundamentals of CBT

Course Director:

Reham Aly

Executive Committee Member, WPA Psychotherapy Section

Consultant Psychiatrist, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Academy of Cognitive Therapy Diplomate & Member, Philadelphia, USA

President of Egyptian Association of Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Keith Dobson

Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Calgary, Canada

President of the World Confederation of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies

Course Description:

Educational objectives include understanding the theory of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), reviewing, and mastering basic CBT therapeutic techniques, and formulating clinical cases based on the CBT Model.

CBT is an evidence-based, problem-focused, and action-oriented psychotherapy modality that focuses on identifying and correcting cognitive distortions that result in maladaptive behaviors and emotional dysregulation. It is the most widely studied form of psychotherapy for adults, children, adolescents, and the elderly. CBT helps persons in distress understand the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behavior to devise more adaptive coping strategies. CBT techniques are applicable to all psychological problems and most psychiatric disorders. CBT emphasizes the people’s ability to choose their thoughts to guide actions and earn control over life events. This course will serve as a practical introduction to this important treatment modality.

Course 3. CBT for Psychosis

Course Director:

Warut Aunjitsakul

Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine,

Prince of Songkhla University

Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand.

Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow,

Glasgow, United Kingdom.

Course Description:

This 3-hour course will be conducted in English. It will be interactive and open to up to 75 participants. The target audience will be early to mid-career psychotherapists as well as students and trainees. Some proficiency in basic CBT would be helpful but not required. The course director is cognizant that psychotherapy training is limited in many low-and-middle-income countries and this course is meant to bridge such resource discrepancies.

Educational objectives include understanding the relationship between social anxiety and psychosis and applying CBT techniques for persons with psychosis, including schizophrenia, in a culturally sensitive way.

In people with psychosis, deficits in social functioning are associated with problems with social relationships, and social anxiety disorder co-morbidity is under-recognized. Moreover, comorbid social anxiety can lead to low functioning and self-esteem, poor quality of life and well-being, and co-morbid depression. This course will examine the association of negative social appraisals and safety behaviors with social anxiety and paranoia. The course director will demonstrate practical CBT psychotherapeutic techniques targeted to reduce anxiety and ameliorate negative symptoms in persons with schizophrenia.

Course 4. Psychotherapy in Primary Care (in French)/Psychothérapie dans les soins primaires: Quelques repères et outils pour faire face aux troubles anxieux et aux troubles de l’humeur

Course Directors:

François Ferrero

Honorary Professor, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Board Member of the International Federation for Psychotherapy

Yasser Khazaal

Full Professor of Addiction Psychiatry, University of Lausanne and Lausanne University Hospital, Switzerland

Associate Professor, Montreal University, Canada

Course Description:

This 3-hour course will be conducted in French and will be interactive. It will be open to up of 75 participants. The target audience will be primary care physicians, early to mid-career psychotherapists, as well as medical students and trainees in the mental health professions.

Educational objectives include delineating collaborative agreements between primary care physicians and psychiatrists-psychotherapists; improving the quality of care for persons with mental disorders, especially anxiety and affective disorders; proposing collaborative models of care; developing psychotherapeutic skills of primary care physicians and other professionals specifying the complementary role of psychiatrists-psychotherapists.

Most patients with mental disorders are first diagnosed and treated by primary care physicians. In many countries around the world, the number of trained psychiatrists is very low and those trained in psychotherapy even rarer. Despite existing programs to train primary care physicians and healthcare workers in psychotherapy, a need still exists for establishing common guidelines aiming to improve both the quality and accessibility of such treatments. This course will offer primary care physicians, and healthcare professionals in primary care the opportunity to improve their skills and basic knowledge of psychotherapy.

Description du cours :

Ce cours de 3 heures sera donné en français sous une forme interactive. Nombre de participants maximum : 75. Le cours s’adresse aux médecins généralistes, aux psychothérapeutes en formation, aux étudiants en médecine et aux professionnels en santé mentale.

Objectifs de formation : Favoriser la collaboration entre médecins de premier recours et psychiatres psychothérapeutes, afin d’améliorer la qualité des soins aux personnes souffrant de troubles mentaux, en particulier de troubles affectifs et anxieux ; Proposer des modèles de soins collaboratifs ; Développer les compétences psychothérapeutiques des médecins et des soignants de premier recours en précisant le rôle complémentaire des psychiatres-psychothérapeutes.

La majorité des patients souffrant de troubles mentaux consultent en premier lieu les médecins généralistes et ce sont eux qui ont la responsabilité de poser un diagnostic et d’engager un traitement.

Dans de nombreux pays, le nombre de psychiatres est limité et les psychiatres ayant une formation en psychothérapie sont encore plus rares. Bien qu’il existe des programmes de formation à la psychothérapie destinés aux médecins généralistes et aux soignants de premier recours, il manque encore des lignes directrices communes qui permettraient d’améliorer tant la qualité que l’accessibilité à ces traitements. Ce cours offrira aux médecins et aux soignants de premier recours une occasion de développer leurs compétences en acquérant quelques connaissances de base en psychothérapie ainsi que quelques outils thérapeutiques.

Course 5. Fundamentals of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Course Directors:

Constantine Della

Head of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry,

University of the Philippines College of Medicine

Secretary, WPA Psychotherapy Section.

Samuel Eng Teck Cheng

Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, Department of Psychological Medicine, Changi General Hospital

Director of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Service, Changi General Hospital

Andre Teck Sng Tay

Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, Department of Psychological Medicine, Changi General Hospital

Clinical Assistant Professor, Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Medical School

Rasmon Kalayasiri

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Chulalongkorn University

Director, Centre for Addiction Studies (CADS), Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University

Nik Ruzyanei Nik Jaafar

Professor of Psychiatry, National University of Malaysia

Chair, National University of Malaysia Good Clinical Practice Committee

Course Description:

Educational objectives include understanding the essential theoretical concepts of psychodynamic psychotherapy; identifying and learning psychodynamic psychotherapy technique; learning how to do a psychodynamic formulation that informs treatment; and describing the associated theoretical paradigms that enhance the psychodynamic approach such as the biopsychosocial model.

The psychoanalytic tradition influenced modern psychiatric practice by helping clinicians understand intrapsychic and interpersonal conflicts and unconscious motivations. Contemporary psychodynamic psychotherapy has distilled concepts of transference, countertransference, resistance, adaptation, and defense mechanisms in a unifying way to inform the clinical treatment of persons with mood disorders, addictions, eating disorders, anxiety disorders and personality disorders. This course will demonstrate how the psychodynamic approach is particularly useful for treatment resistant and complex, co-morbid psychiatric disorders.

Course 6. A Review of Third Wave Therapies

Course Directors:

Jian Linn Loo

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board,

Wrexham Maelor Hospital, Wrexham, United Kingdom

Noor Melissa Nor Hadi

Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi MARA,

Selangor, Malaysia.

Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Tuanku Fauziah,

Perlis, Malaysia

Iizax Ramírez

Mexican Society of Neurology and Psychiatry,

Mexico City, Mexico.

Course Description:

Educational objectives include understanding the development of specialized psychotherapies known as the third wave therapies, which include dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), behavioral activation therapy (BAT) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT); and learning how to integrate DBT, ACT, MBCT and BAT skills in the routine psychotherapy clinical care of patients in a variety of clinical settings.

Given the burden of mental health morbidities, especially in the pandemic and post-pandemic era, there is an increasing need for the provision of effective psychotherapies. The third-wave therapies have been validated transculturally and are especially helpful in regions of the world that value collectivism and interdependence. This course will offer registrants practical skills to inform eclectic approaches to psychotherapy to maximize treatment effectiveness in real world clinical settings and complex conditions.

Course 7. Fundamentals of Motivational Interviewing

Course Directors:

Hazli Zakaria

President, Malaysian Psychiatric Association.

Director, Alaminda Psychiatric Clinic,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Faiz Tahir

Consultant Psychiatrist,

International Islamic University Malaysia,

Kuantan, Malaysia.

Chair of the WPA Psychotherapy Section Special Interest Group on Cultural Adaptations of Motivational Interviewing.

Course Description:

Educational objectives include describing the theory of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and highlighting basic MI techniques that could be incorporated in all psychotherapies.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a psychotherapy that is directive, patient-centered and designed to elicit behavior change. MI helps patients to explore and resolve ambivalence, promote willingness to change and couple insight with action. Research demonstrates the effectiveness of MI in the management of chronic medical illnesses (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity), smoking cessation, alcohol dependence, and medication and treatment adherence. This course will focus on describing the theory behind MI (including the transtheoretical stages of change model) and demonstrating basic MI concepts and techniques (such as the user of open-ended questions, affirmations, reflection, summary statements). The psychotherapy process sequence of engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning will be explained, as well as the key principles of expressing empathy, supporting self-efficacy, creating discrepancy, avoiding arguments, and rolling with resistance. Clinical demonstrations will be offered to course registrants in an interactive fashion.