In this video blog, Dr. Timothy Rogers welcomes you to the Snoozeum, CDP’s virtual museum of sleep disorders. The Snoozeum is built in Second Life, a virtual world that allows for an immersive experience. Your avatar (the character that represents you virtually) can explore information and exhibits 24/7.
The lack of training pertaining to the assessment and treatment of sleep disorders is not uncommon amongst behavioral healthcare providers. When I am conducting trainings for CDP, few attendees endorse receiving any formal training pertaining to the assessment and treatment of sleep disorders. However, when asked about the patients that they work with, most attendees indicate the vast majority of their patients have sleep problems. This critical knowledge gap between training and clinical needs of patients underscores the importance of training in the assessment and treatment of sleep disorders. In particular, I want to highlight some key points I have taken from my training in this area and have found to be very helpful in my clinical practice, supervision and training.
My great-grandfather once told me that “The best and worst things in life happen at night.” I am sure that I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, but I clearly recall spending nights at my great-grandparents’ home in Jackson, Tennessee as a young boy and watching my great-grandfather pace the house at night and asking him why he always seemed to be awake. My great-grandfather William Alfred Key enlisted in the U.S. Army underage to fight in the final months of World War I and in 1940 was commissioned as an engineering officer in the beginning of World War II. He was later the State Commander of the Tennessee Veterans of Foreign Wars. Papa was my first hero and I am pretty sure he never slept.
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.
We here at the Center for Deployment Psychology are excited to unveil the new Evidence-Based Psychotherapies video section on our website. As part of our multi-day EBP training events, we use many videos to demonstrate a variety of techniques. One of the most common request we receive is participants wanting the opportunity to watch these videos again afterwards to help reinforce the concepts. Now those interested can watch (and re-watch) all these video demonstrations whenever they want.