Workshops

When the official conference program concludes, make the most of your Saturday by participating in full or half day workshops. Led by dynamic presenters, the workshops cover a range of issues and strategies.

Workshops will take place concurrently on Saturday 27 September at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, with full day workshops from 8.30am - 4.30pm and half day workshops running from 8.30am - 12pm and 12.30pm - 4pm.

The workshop ‘Transcultural psychological consulting’ will be held at the The Old Woolstore Apartment Hotel. Please see below for full venue details.

Click here to view the Workshop Program or see below for further details.

Please note: the two day workshop ‘Working with Indigenous Australians: Essential Foundations of Cultural Competence’ has been cancelled.

Please note: the half-day workshops ‘Personal, professional and political: Personal experiences in the context of research, professional development and community psychology practice' and 'What do you get when you cross a psychologist and a journalist?' have been cancelled.  

Half day workshops

• Using problem-maintaining circles (PMCs) in psychopathological modelling, problem formulation and treatment planning
• Diagnosis and assessment of Autism spectrum disorders

Using problem-maintaining circles (PMCs) in psychopathological modelling, problem formulation and treatment planning

Bakker, G
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am-12noon

The emphasis in cognitive-behaviour therapy(CBT) on evidence based interventions, and on treatment relevance in assessment, has led to an increasing focus on problem maintenance factors (versus precipitants) in models of psychopathology, individual functional analysis and case formulations, and in treatment selection. This workshop presents a generic CBT model based on the functional analysis of ‘problem-maintaining circles'(PMCs) of causes, with samples of some of the profuse literature implicating PMCs in many psychological disorders. The utility of PMC-based case formulation is described, not only as a guide to the selection of interventions, but also as an alternative to standard psychiatric diagnosis. A basic taxonomy of such PMCs is presented, and illustrations and exercises in PMC-based case formulation and treatment selection will be undertaken. The practicalities of sharing these formulations with clients and in reports will be addressed.

Diagnosis and assessment of Autism spectrum disorders

Gibbs, V
Saturday 27 September, 12.30pm-4pm

This half-day workshop will outline the components of a comprehensive evidence based assessment process for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using a three stage model developed by Autism Spectrum Australia. An overview of the characteristics of ASD, including video footage and case studies and discussion of ASD as a "spectrum" condition will be provided. Current research on the validity of the distinction between high-functioning autism and Asperger's Disorder will be presented. Screening instruments and diagnostic tools for ASD will be outlined, along with an approach to differential diagnosis for this client group. The workshop will also include practical exercises and an opportunity for discussion and questioning.

Full day workshops

• Advanced CBT
• Assessing children with the Wechsler Scales
• Evidence of absence: A guide to contemporary adult cognitive assessment in the Australian context
• Transcultural psychological consulting
• Clinical supervision: Managing structure, process, relationships, problems and ethical issues
• Environmental attitudes and actions in context

Advanced CBT *SOLD OUT*

O'Kelly, M
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

The focus of this workshop is to build on participants CBT skills to enable them to be more effective with difficult clients and problems. One of the major issues in CBT is to be able to help the difficult client identify and bring into conscious awareness the particular, sometimes elusive, belief s that are at the source of their problems. Once the client takes emotional responsibility, the task of exploring and challenging those beliefs efficiently and elegantly can occur. This workshop will focus on advanced strategies to address these therapeutic tasks.

Topics discussed will include:

• Identifying the core belief
• Helping the client to take emotional responsibility
• Identifying and working with meta emotions
• Identifying and working with meta cognitions
• Advanced disputation
• Exploring therapy style

The presentation will include didactic presentation of material, discussion, demonstrations, either live or video, and practice of the skills discussed. Handout material will include therapy "cheat sheets" listing effective and practical therapeutic questions.

Assessing children with the Wechsler Scales

Hannan, T
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

This workshop provides a comprehensive examination of the use and interpretation of the WISC-IV and WIAT-II in the assessment of children and adolescents. The primary aim of this workshop is to explore the application of these tests in the diagnosis and classification of developmental cognitive disorders in children and adolescents, including developmental language disorders, learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other developmental cognitive disorders.

Participants will be introduced to the theoretical and empirical bases of the instruments, and relevant psychometric considerations in their use and interpretation. A step-by-step approach for analysing and interpreting Wechsler scale profiles will be introduced, with strategies for generating hypotheses concerning the diagnosis and classification of learning disabilities and other developmental cognitive disorders. The integration of the Wechsler scales with other popular tests will also be explored, with discussion of the CELF-4, and tests of memory and executive functions.

Evidence of absence: A guide to contemporary adult cognitive assessment in the Australian context

Crowe, S
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

This workshop will present a comprehensive review of the structure, function and test operating characteristics of WAIS-III and the WMS-III and provides guidelines for their use in a variety of assessment settings. The workshop will also focus on the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (W TAR), an instrument co-normed with the WAIS -III and the WMS-III and which provides an estimate of pre-injury levels of function on the scales against which contemporary performances can be compared. The workshop will provide case presentations and clinical rules of thumb for the use of these instruments in the clinical setting. Suggestions and recommendations for assessing cases of dementia, traumatic brain injury, the psychiatric disorders including depression and sch izophrenia as well as discussing the use of the scales in cases of learning disability, intellectual disability and in the diagnosis of factitious disorders or malingering will be presented during the session. The workshop will focus upon aspects of assessment which are unique to the Australian setting, and provide a review of developments and cautions which have arisen from literature in the decade since the scales were first published. The aim of the workshop is to provide clinicians with sensible, psychometrically sound guidelines for conducting assessments of intelligence and memory in clinical setting s and to do so in a way that is both clinically and statistic ally meaningful.

Transcultural psychological consulting†

Montgomery, B
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

†Please note: This workshop will be held at the Merino Room, The Old Woolstore Apartment Hotel, 1 Macquarie Street, Hobart

Every psychological consultation is transcultural. It is unlikely you and your client share identical cultural values. Sometimes the cultural differences will be large and apparent, sometimes subtle but still significant, but always there. The social factors in the biopsychosocial model recognise cultural factors as important. Complete understanding of a culture requires more extensive experience of it than can be obtained in brief workshops. The unlikelihood of being expert in any culture other than your own is exacerbated by the diversity of cultures within Australia. For example, over a hundred indigenous Australian languages and accompanying cultures have been identified, further complicated by whether an indigenous client has an urban, regional, or remote background.

Australia has experienced waves of migration and offers sanctuary to refugees from diverse countries, many of whom show understandable psychological consequences of the events causing them to flee their homes. Understanding any individual is further complicated by their degree of cultural identification and other cultural aspirations. Realistic goals for psychologists are not to become overnight experts in other cultures but to strengthen their awareness of and sensitivity to cultural differences and to build practical skills for working effectively across transcultural divides. That is the aim of this workshop.

Clinical supervision: Managing structure, process, relationships, problems and ethical issues

Hammond, S.W.
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

Supervision is a key component of psychologists' work and is increasingly regarded as a professional competence requiring appropriate training. This workshop provides an overview of key theoretical and practical considerations in supervision. The aim of this workshop is to encourage participants to examine their supervisory skills and approach relative to their professional practice settings, to examine their own and their supervisees' roles and expectations and to reflect upon the supervisory relationship. The workshop will specifically focus on how supervisors manage this relationship and on identifying and resolving problems and ethical challenges in supervision. Through group discussion, case vignettes and role play, this workshop will explore issues such as consent, confidentiality, multiple relationships, conflicts of interest, documentation, practice dilemmas and dealing constructively with difficult or impaired supervisees.

Environmental attitudes and actions in context

Uzzell, D.
Saturday 27 September, 8.30am - 4.30pm

This workshop will provide a review of research methodologies and findings on environmental behaviour change, including social marketing techniques, identity theory and social norms. There will be interactive sessions to collect data from workshop participants on their perceptions of environmental issues, followed by analyses of this material using co-orientation analysis, discourse analysis, and Boal's conflict resolution techniques to understand socially situated environmental attitudes and practices. The workshop will especially interest psychology researchers; psychologists working in policy settings (e.g. national, federal and local government); psychologists working on behaviour change programmes; and doctoral students especially from environmental, social and political psychology.