Blog posts with the tag "Clinical Skills"

Staff Perspective: Are we “Pushers”, or “Adaptive” with patient understanding?

By Debra Nofziger  on 06.09.2017 10:50 am
Deb Nofziger, Psy.D.

I catch myself in a trap every so often, as my colleagues have, getting so caught up in selling the phases outlined in a treatment modality that I haven’t taken the time to hear the words from the patients’ perspective. And, working with an all military culture, I’ve found that when this happens I’ve usually lost the patient. I’ve used terms that simply don’t resonate with them and they are less willing to engage in whatever awesome thing I’m trying to get them to try.

Staff Perspective: Cracking the Code of Sleep Log Scoring

By Diana Dolan  on 16.08.2017 11:34 am

Providers of behavioral treatment of sleep disorders, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) or Brief Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (BBTI), need to score sleep logs efficiently and accurately to implement strategies. Moreover, we must teach patients how to score their own logs so that they in turn can implement sleep schedule adjustments without our guidance. It’s not surprising, then, that a frequent topic that arises in consultations concerns the use of sleep logs, specifically, learning steps for how to score logs and getting experience doing so.

Staff Perspective: Identification and Assessment of Moral Injury

By Paula Domenici  on 02.08.2017 10:06 am

To facilitate a discussion about how to identify and assess for moral injury, let’s review the account below written by Ms. Tessa Poppe, who served in the Army National Guard as a Military Police Officer for seven years and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. It’s titled, When the Hardest Thing is Doing Nothing: Moral Injury Caused by Inaction in War and appeared in Foreign Policy on 12 June 2015. Through her narrative, Ms. Poppe paints a picture of a moral dilemma when she felt paralyzed about what to do while deployed and the inner turmoil associated with it. 

Staff Perspective: CPT Session Notes Are Here!

By Andrew Santanello  on 05.07.2017 3:38 pm
Andrew Santanello, Psy.D.

It is my pleasure to announce a brand new resource that is now available on our website: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) Session Notes! Drs. Lefkowitz, Nofziger, and myself have been working hard for the better part of the last year to put together a series of brief videos that review the key agenda items and interventions for each session in the CPT protocol. We chose to use a platform that allowed us to present the material in a unique and engaging manner (spoiler alert: each video includes a cartoon version of yours truly). 

Staff Perspective: Behaviorism Saves the Day!

By Andrew Santanello  on 21.06.2017 10:41 am

While working with clients, it can be all too easy to give into the desire to avoid our own discomfort. We buy into our own emotional reasoning and rob our clients of the opportunity to discover their ability to be resilient. When we are staring suffering in the face, our clients need us to put aside our own fears. We cannot cater to the irrational thoughts and emotions that would have us take a “safer” and “more supportive” approach. We need to trust in our training and the principles that operate behind the drama. Our clients need us to help them to discover these principles in action so that they can begin to understand the way to recovery for themselves.

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