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Digital Seminar

Chronic Medical Illness: ACT, CBT, and MI to Improve Anxiety, Grief, Pain, and Functioning


Speaker:
Jessica Vanderlan, PhD
Duration:
6 Hours 15 Minutes
Language:
Presented in EN, subtitles in EN and FR, handouts in EN and FR
Format:
Audio and Video
Copyright:
Apr 17, 2025
Product Code:
POS150130
Media Type:
Digital Seminar - Also available: Live Webinar


Description

When clients have chronic health problems, therapy becomes even more complicated.

Already struggling with their mental health symptoms, these clients are confused, frustrated, and demoralised by their medical illness. It interferes with their self-efficacy and functioning, and it creates profound shifts in their identify and relationships.

Of course, they need their medical providers to help manage their condition.

But they also need you.

Faced with complicated terminology, unappealing decisions regarding treatment options, and challenging lifestyle changes, you might feel as intimidated and hopeless as your clients.

Now you can become a source of help and hope for your clients with chronic medical illness. During a full day of comprehensive training, Jessica Vanderlan, PhD will walk you step by step through the latest evidence-based strategies to improve mood, pain, and functioning. You’ll gain the skills you need to confidently implement:

  • Key collaborative assessments tools for distress, quality of life, anxiety, and more
  • Cutting edge strategies from CBT, ACT, MI and more to reduce the burden of medical illness
  • Best practices for involving caregivers and families in treatment, collaborating with healthcare providers, and other ethical and professional issues

PURCHASE TODAY to meet the growing demand for behavioural treatment interventions for clients coping with chronic medical illness!

 

Credit

Program Information

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.



Canada Credit - *

NOTE: Tuition includes one free CE Certificate (participant will be able to print the certificate of completion after passing the online post-test (80% passing score) and completing the evaluation). Instructional methods will include PowerPoint, didactic lecture, and others.

Continuing Education Information:  Listed below are the continuing education credit(s) currently available for this non-interactive self-study package. Program content is reviewed periodically per accrediting board rules for currency and appropriateness for credit. Credit approvals are subject to change. Please note, your licensing board dictates whether self-study is an acceptable form of continuing education, as well as which credit types are acceptable for continuing education hours. Please refer to your licensing board's rules and regulations. If your profession is not listed, please contact your licensing board to determine your continuing education requirements and check for reciprocal approval. 
For other credit inquiries not specified below, please contact info@pesi.com or 800-844-8260 before purchase.

Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of your profession.  As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your profession's standards.  

For Planning Committee disclosures, please see the statement above.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

 


Canada Credit - ---

Earn up to 6.25 CE hours. Please see below, for more details, as credit amounts vary by jurisdiction and profession. 


Canada Credit - Canadian Counsellors and Psychotherapists

PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association to offer continuing education for counsellors and psychotherapists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This self-study activity is approved for 6.0 credit hours.


Canada Credit - Social Workers - National ASWB ACE

PESI, Inc., #1062, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: January 27, 2023 - January 27, 2026. Social workers completing this course receive 6.25 Clinical continuing education credits.

 

Course Level: Intermediate Format: Recorded asynchronous distance. Full attendance is required; no partial credits will be offered for partial attendance.

 

Canadian Social Workers: Canadian provinces may accept activities approved by the ASWB for ongoing professional development.


Canada Credit - Canadian Psychologists

PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This program is approved for 6.0 self-study continuing education hours. Full credit statement at: www.pesi.com/cpa-statement


Canada Credit - Other Professions

This self-study activity qualifies for 6.25 continuing education clock hours as required by many national and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Save your activity advertisement and certificate of completion, and contact your own board or organization for specific requirements.


US National Boards - Occupational Therapists & Occupational Therapy Assistants

 

PESI, Inc.  is an AOTA Approved Provider of professional development. Approved provider # 3322. This Distance-Learning Independent activity is offered at .625  CEUs Intermediate , OT Service Delivery; Foundational Knowledge. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.

 

Full attendance at this live activity qualifies for 6.25 contact hours.

 



Handouts

Speaker

Jessica Vanderlan, PhD's Profile

Jessica Vanderlan, PhD Related seminars and products


Jessica Vanderlan, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and manager of the Siteman Psychology Service at the Siteman Cancer Center, where she provides therapy to patients with cancer and cancer caregivers and leads a psycho-oncology training program. She is a board member and director of education for the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and co-chair for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s distress guidelines panel. Dr. Vanderlan’s research focuses on psycho-oncology, distress screening, psychological functioning in gynecologic oncology, program development, and integrated psychological care. She is on the psychiatry faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine where she assists in training medical students and residents.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Jessica Vanderlan has employment relationships with Siteman Psychology Service and Washington University. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Jessica Vanderlan serves on the board of American Psychosocial Oncology Society and the on the Distress Management Guidelines panel for NCCN.

 


Additional Info

Program Information

Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.


Questions?

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.


Objectives

  1. Utilise screening and assessment instruments to monitor depression and anxiety symptoms in clients coping with chronic medical illness to inform treatment planning. 
  2. Appraise the impact of at least three client losses related to chronic medical illness.  
  3. Conduct cognitive restructuring to reduce catastrophising related to medical illness. 
  4. Utilise at least two interventions to decrease symptoms of pain, nausea, fatigue, and insomnia. 
  5. Demonstrate at least two strategies for supporting family caregivers. 
  6. Apply the SBAR method to communication with healthcare professionals.

Outline

Establishing Whole Person Care
What it is and why it’s important
  • How to talk with clients about medical problems
  • Facilitating engagement with the client who considers their problem to be only medical
  • Social desirability and other challenges in identifying symptoms and stressors
  • Collaborative agenda-setting
  • Top quality of life domains to address
What Does Grief Have to Do With It?
Psychological distress in the medially ill
  • Relationship between medical symptoms, pain, and distress
    • Expected manifestations of distress in the context of medical illness
    • Factors that increase risk of distress
    • Bi-directional relationship distress and illness
    • Top screening tools for distress
    • The 5 key losses associate with illness
    • Working with anticipatory grief

Depression and Anxiety
Are they inevitable after diagnosis of an illness?

  • Diagnostic issues when symptoms of disease overlap with signs of depression
  • Forms of anxiety that are particularly prevalent in medical illness
  • Key assessment tools and techniques
  • Barriers to diagnosing depression and anxiety in medical patients
  • Medical consequences of untreated depression
  • What to do when anxiety interferes with compliance with medical treatments
  • Suicide risk and severe illness
CBT and Act Interventions for Clients with Medical Illness
Top techniques for fears of death, fears of recurrence, and other distressing outcomes
  • Effective strategies for illness-related cognitive distortions
  • Cognitive restructuring to reframe, dial down, and challenge unhelpful thoughts
  • Mindfulness and acceptance strategies
  • Cognitive defusion to address negative and obsessive thinking
  • Stimulus control for triggers
  • Effective relaxation techniques and exercises
  • How to decrease time in bed and other maladaptive behaviours
  • Activity scheduling and health-promoting behaviours
  • Values clarification in the context of medical illness
  • SMART goals for committed action
  • Gratitude exercises to increase resilience
How Behavioural Health Providers Can Assist with Management of Physical Symptoms
CBT, ACT, MI and other interventions to improve mood, pain, and functioning
  • Symptom burden: how to prioritise concerns
  • Motivational interviewing to harness clients’ reasons and resources
  • How to address catastrophising with CBT for pain
  • How to help clients with pacing
  • Making room for pain with ACT
  • Mindfulness, yoga, and movement for management of fatigue
  • How to improve clients’ sleep with CBT – stimulus control, sleep restriction, and more
  • Relaxation, imagery, mindfulness, hypnosis, and more for nausea
Terminal Illness and End of Life Considerations
Disentangling quality versus quantity of life
  • How to talk with clients about readiness to die and quality of dying
  • Four things that matter most for a good death
  • Top worries related to desire for hastened death
  • Differences between supportive, palliative, and hospice care
  • Ethics in medical decision-making
  • Managing family disagreements and dysfunction related to treatment options
  • Decisions to withhold or withdraw care
Clinical Considerations
Ethics and professional issues in working with medically ill clients
  • Best practices for communication with healthcare professionals: the SBAR method
  • How to share information without breaking confidentiality
  • Understanding and working with caregivers who may be as distressed as the client
  • Foster resilience in family caregivers
  • Management of therapist reactions, disclosures, and burnout
  • Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

  • Social Workers
  • Counselors
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Case Managers
  • Psychologists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Physicians
  • Nurse Practitioners
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Other Helping Professionals

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