Schema Therapy for Depression: Including chronic, recurrent and ‘treatment-resistant’ presentations by Dr Gemma Gladstone

Schema Therapy for Depression: Including chronic, recurrent and ‘treatment-resistant’ presentations  by Dr Gemma Gladstone

Location: Holiday Inn, Potts Point, Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Date: 30^th Nov – 1^st Dec, 2018

Time: 9 am – 4.30 pm

CPD: 12

Cost: $580 + GST

Trainer: Dr Gemma Gladstone – Advanced level schema therapist, supervisor/trainer & Clinical Psychologist.

Website: www.sydneyschematherapy.com.au

Description:

This 2-day workshop provides an in depth look at the use of schema and schema mode therapy to help clients presenting with chronic, recurrent, ‘difficult to treat’ or so called “treatment-resistant” depression. It is not uncommon to encounter clients whose help seeking for depression has been extensive and demoralising. Clients with recurrent or persistent depression can often find themselves in a hopeless situation where previous treatments (both medical and psychological) have proven to be only slightly effective, with any real benefits often short-lived. Sadly, such individuals are often given the message that their depression is somehow “resistant” to treatment and that they are perhaps beyond help.  A comprehensive therapeutic approach must involve a careful and thorough examination of the underlying psychological vulnerabilities at play (ie, schemas). There have always been key personality risk factors for depression and schema therapy expands on this vital aetiological framework. It is important to assess how such vulnerabilities plays out in the interpersonal domain and how schemas and modes continue to maintain the depression (eg, in schema driven relationships; a strong punitive parent mode) over time.  Some working knowledge and skills practice in schema therapy would prove helpful as a prerequisite for this workshop (but not essential).

Even though this workshop will focus on depression, it will provide a good overview of schema therapy and schema mode models for treatment.  It will provide general instruction on schema case conceptualisation and will highlight the importance of personality risk factors for depression.  It will therefore be a suitable training event for psychologists who wish to better understand schema/personality risk factors (cluster B and cluster C presentations) and learn new ways to work with entrenched long-term schema-based patterns which play out in recurrent depression.  

The workshop will include:

• An overview of schemas and schema modes and an in depth treatment of which ones typically serve as robust depressogenic agents / key risk factors for depression.
  
• A brief look at depression as a clinical disorder and a re-think of dominate classification systems.
  
• A brief overview of relevant research into schema therapy for chronic depression
  
• A look at ‘limited-reparenting’ and heightened emotional attunement for depressed clients (i.e., the value of a highly attuned empathic care-giver mode).
  
• Details on how to conceptualise clients within a schema therapy framework and complete an informative mode map for use with clients.
  
• Illustrative real case studies from the presenter’s clinical practice of 23 years.
  
• Experiential interventions targeted at addressing toxic ‘parent modes’ (e.g., chair-work) and developmental origins of relevant schemas (e.g., imagery re-scripting).
  
• Novel imagery interventions to consolidate mood improvement once a client is no longer depressed (very powerful!).
  
• Empathic confrontation techniques to assist clients distance themselves from unhelpful coping modes typically seen in clients with recurrent depression (eg, ‘angry protector’; ‘compliant surrenderer’, ‘perfectionistic over-controller’).
  
• Role plays and skills practise within pairs or small groups.
  
• Small group discussions.
  

Participants are invited to bring details of a client case for discussion. There will be an opportunity to conceptualise your client from a schema perspective – identifying the main schemas or modes involved in the maintenance or relapse of their depression and identifying a treatment plan.