Executive Summary:
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is where a person has an obsessive belief (for example that their hands are contaminated) and a compulsion to perform a behaviour that will relieve the distress (for example to wash their hands). Typically the obsessions and compulsions get more and more severe and may expand to include many facets of everyday life. Inevitably, therefore, this causes great distress to the sufferer and those around them, and the seeming inability to control their own behaviour simply results in additional distress and bewilderment. Usually, those with OCD realise that their behaviour is 'not normal' and this is a clear differentiator between obsessional beliefs and psychotic ones.
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The aims of the course:
The aims are (a) to describe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, (b) to describe the theory which explains how OCD develops and (c) to cover the methods of treatment for OCD in a way that encourages delegates to use them subsequently.
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The course covers:
- What is OCD? Symptoms including: behavioural, biological, emotional, and cognitive symptoms.
- Causes and maintaining factors of OCD.
- A description of obsessions and compulsions and how they inter relate.
- NICE guidelines for OCD and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD is a preoccupation with a perceived defect in ones appearance).
- The NICE stepped care approach, both pharmacological and psychological/behavioural.
- The measurement of OCD. In evidence based practice it is essential to obtain evidence from the patient, their friends and their relatives. Objective and subjective measures.
- Exposure plus response prevention; its major role in OCD, how we do it, how anxiety decreases over time and how people with OCD need so much support and encouragement to carry on with the helpful treatment.
- Helpful adjuncts to therapy: modelling, extended sessions, and more.
- Psycho-education, patient-practice and differential reinforcement.
- Key metaphors that are helpful in explanation and encouragement for people with OCD.
- Social factors. Social factors are often implicated in OCD, so it is important to assess and address them.
- The limited role of logical evidence based reasoning in OCD.
- OCD and autistic spectrum disorders. A feature of ASD is the 'obsessionality' that frequently accompanies it. Can they be treated in the same way as other OCD cases?
- Sexual obsessions and obsessions with previous partners. An examination of whether these can be treated in the same way as OCD obsessions.
- Course methods include lectures, discussions, video material, case studies and practice exercises.
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What you receive as a result of attending the training:
You will be registered as having attended the course, thereby gaining APT's Level 1 accreditation, and receive a certificate to this effect. The accreditation gives you access to online resources associated with the course and access to the online exam if you wish to uprate your APT accreditation to Level 2.
Your registration lasts indefinitely, and your accreditation lasts for 3 years and is renewable by sitting an online refresher which also upgrades your accreditation to APT Level 2 if you are successful in the associated online exam.
Your accreditation is given value by the fact of over 125,000 people having attended APT training. See APT accreditation for full details.
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