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Professionals Training day a Huge Success!

Posted on 13 May 2016

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Tourettes Action training more clinicians in behavioural therapy

There was full attendance at the behavioural therapy training for professionals in London on the 21st and 22nd April. This event was aimed at providing training for health professionals who work with people with tics and Tourettes Syndrome and who wish to offer behavioural therapy to their patients. The majority of clinicians who attended work in the NHS. The training was subsidised and organised by Tourettes Action and was led by Dr Tara Murphy, Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist from Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust (GOSH);and Jolande van de Griendt (Health psychologist).

Clinicians who attended included psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists who came from London and surrounding counties as well as Wales, Devon and Scotland.

Although the focus was on children, adults were also spoken about. The training started by explaining about tics and premonitory urges. The clinicians were asked to take part in an exercise. They were asked to stop blinking and open their eyes until the trainer said they can blink again. They were asked to describe how it felt: 'Hard. Pressure in my eyes. You HAVE to close your eyes. Blinked more times afterwards. Your mind is concentrated on the feeling and little else'. This is helpful to give a glimpse of what it feels like to feel an urge before a tic.

Trainers talked about the classification of Tourettes disorder, co-occurring conditions, such as OCD, ADHD, anger management difficulties as well as learning disorders such as dyspraxia, dyscalculia etc. Important aspects were discussed such as waxing  and waning. Different research papers are discussed with one result which found 60% of referrals to a children's clinic had problems with anger. The take home message was that behavioural therapy can help with anger and that it should not just be 'put up with' as part of TS.  Different therapeutic approaches were illustrated habit reversal therapy (HRT) and Exposure response prevention (ERP). Other techniques such as breathing and relaxation, and cognitive strategies were discussed, all the time using examples to illustrate. Videos were used to illustrate how a clinician can guide someone with Tourettes Syndrome how they can tackle tics with competing responses to help them become more in control of tics.

One of Tourettes Actions aims is to raise awareness of Tourette's syndrome amongst clinicians and train them so they are able to offer behavioural therapy to patients. Such training events allow Tourettes action to create and build on relationships with clinicians who can take the skills and experience of this training back to their mental health setting, CAMHS service or hospital setting and use it in their daily work with people who have TS as well as passing on what they have learned to colleagues.

The feedback from the clinicians was very positive indeed. 83% felt their knowledge had improved in regards to diagnosis and 100% felt their knowledge had improved in regards to how to treat tics and TS using behavioural therapy. Comments included: Video material was especially helpful. Presenters were excellent. Friendly and approachable manner created relaxed atmosphere for the training.
“The two day event has been exceptionally informative. The material has been delivered in a very engaging accessible way, my practice will be significantly improved.” “I really enjoyed it and found it helpful and it made me feel much more confident.” “Very inspiring. Very personable and excellent explanation of theory and practice link.”
This is the first year in its history Tourettes Action has been able to offer UK-wide subsidised training for clinicians in behavioural therapy. We are hoping we will be able to offer more opportunities like this in the future.

from Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust (GOSH)

 


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Professionals Training day a Huge Success!

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