Mini Workshop 13 - Every Second Counts: Confronting the Challenges of CBT Training and Dissemination for Psychiatry Residents

The close ally-ship between psychiatrists and psychologists is critical to the delivery of gold standard clinical care. At the same time, current psychiatry training models are not sufficient to truly support these partnerships. Psychiatrists are asked to develop a set of complex competencies in CBT in a small fraction of the didactic training, supervision, and clinical contact allocated to the average psychology Ph. D. graduate student. At this same time, CBT training programs rarely are adapted to address the distinctions between psychiatry training models and populations. Psychiatrists first encounter with patients is often in emergency department or inpatient settings, contributing to a particular sense of what mental illness is that does not readily map onto typical outpatient work. CBT training cases are frequently drawn from acute community populations who either rarely present in research samples or are actively excluded by researchers as too complex or risky. Psychiatric residents confront suicidality and risk in their initial patient contacts at a level not commonly seen in other training disciplines. Frequently, training traditions emphasizing biological and psychodynamic training can impact the receptiveness of psychiatrists to CBT as a viable therapeutic option. Finally, psychiatrists practice CBT in the context of combined treatment, requiring them to balance two different models simultaneously while they are taught each separately. Meeting the training needs of our partners requires a radical rethinking of how we handle CBT training for residents. This workshop will focus on crystalizing the challenges confronted when training psychiatrists in CBT and discussing how we can address these challenges at the program development level as well as giving specific training guidance for best evidence-supported practices in didactic training and supervision. Special attention will be given to how to keep training models up to date with current best practices in cultural humility in direct care.

Recommended Reading 1: Sudak, D. M. (2009). Training in cognitive behavioral therapy in psychiatry residency: An overview for educators. Behavior Modification, 33(1), 124-137.

Recommended Reading 2: Moreau, J. M., Phelps, K. W., & Jones, A. B. (2022). The lived experiences of learning cognitive behavioral therapy: a qualitative study of psychiatry residents. Academic Psychiatry, 46(6), 746-749.

Recommended Reading 3: Kamholz, B. W., Liverant, G. I., Black, S., Aaronson, C. J., & Hill, J. (2014). Beyond psychologist training: CBT education for psychiatry residents. The Behavior Therapist.