Training & Workshops
Positive Mental Training, contained with the Feeling Good App, is a self managed, evidence based, treatment for depression, anxiety and burnout, for patients and often used by GPs and psychiatrists themselves to increase their own wellbeing & resilience and reduce their stress.
Based on sports psychology, it is an audio modular programme incorporating mindful relaxation with positive reappraisal and visualisation techniques.
It is used in the NHS as supervised self help treatment and attending a training workshop will give you useful new insights into the neuroscience of mind body links, as well as the skills to integrate using the Feeling Good App into your clinical practice and personal development. The programme is also useful for physical expressions of stress.
‘Its great and the patients with free data often download it in the consultation‘ Dr Julian Tomkinson, GP, Training Programme Director, South Central Manchester
‘We all use them extensively in the …medical centre and would certainly consider this to be a very important and valuable first step in the treatment of depression.’ Edinburgh GP
Anonymous comments from evaluations of GP workshops :
- ‘simple to understand and take on board’
- ‘very high quality training’ ‘
- exceeded (my learning objectives and expectations) ..thought it might be a bit mumbo jumbo – nice to see ‘scientific’ background to this technique’
- ‘a completely novel and instant way of resolving a variety of stress related issues without drugs’, ‘excellent enjoyable mix of theory and practice’
Our workshops have been running since 2006 and we have had around 1400 health professionals attend since then with at least 800 GPs and increasing numbers of psychiatric staff, as well as counselling, mental health specialist teams, psychologists, speech therapists. These workshops were recognised for their quality in 2011 when they were RCGP accredited, and they are consistently highly rated on feedback. We carry out training in in primary care (NHS) and in the workplace.
Workshop Training Learning Outcomes
The overall learning objective is:
- to obtain a thorough understanding of the causes of depression and distress, and the mediators of recovery
- to be able to manage patients distress (and their own) within a psychologically minded practice.
At the end of session 1 participants will be able to:
- Critically explore the underlying neurological pathways of emotional distress
- Contrast and compare different types of psychological therapy
- Engage in critical dialogue the mind/body link
- Recognise the importance of the GP/therapist role in the treatment of emotional distress
- Explain the PosMT programme to your patients
At the end of session 2 participants will be able to:
- Evaluate the use of PosMT within your work
- Use brief techniques to demonstrate effects
- Assess the appropriateness of PosMT with your patient
- Monitor ongoing progress with your patients
- Apply the theory and practice to your own personal & professional life
Workshops are interactive:
- We work with peer group discussion to allow reflection of personal experiences to facilitate learning.
- Lecture on the theory of recovery as a way to focus attention on key learning points.
- Use video materials of patient distress & recovery to discuss.
- Applying learning to self & patients through skills based training from theory and practice.