Re:CBT Training for Residents

The format I've used has been weekly 90 minute seminars which combined readings, didactic presentations, discussion, and videotaped demonstrations. I basically presented the same topics as I would present to psychologists or social workers but spent more time on the basic principles because the residents had very limited psychotherapy training. I also spent some time on the basic principles of behavior therapy and on the rationale for BT/CBT because they had virtually no exposure to anything but medication and psychodynamic therapy.

All in all it went well and was well recieved. I found that the residents were a less responsive audience than I was accustomed to, they tended to sit there with blank looks on their faces even when they were enjoying the presentation.

Normally, I would spend a significant amount of time on experiential exercises where the class breaks into three-person groups and role-plays various components of CBT (agenda-setting, pinpointing automatic thoughts, generating rational responses, etc.) However, when I was teaching the residents (about 10 years ago) I was only alotted five 90-minute sessions to cover Cognitive Therapy of depression so there wasn't enough time to include the experiential exercises. With 3 hours a week for 16 weeks, I'd recommend including a lot of time for experiential exercises. When the residents hear a lecture on agenda-setting or pinpointing thoughts, it sounds easy. It is only when they try doing it in a role play that they realize that they need to acquire some skills to do CT effectively.

Replies:

Re:CBT Training for Residents, by Larry Needleman, 08/13/02

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