Full Course Description

Beyond Sleep Hygiene: CBT Solutions to Improve Outcomes and Resolve Insomnia Symptoms in Clients with Anxiety, PTSD, Depression, and More

Stuck progress. Incomplete treatment gains. Symptom recurrence.

These aren’t the outcomes you want for your clients.

Anxiety, PTSD, and depression share a common problem - sleep disturbance. And you’re likely underestimating its significance.

While old wisdom suggested that insomnia was just a symptom of other disorders that would resolve along with the primary mental health condition...

...new evidence reveals that not only is insomnia a risk factor for numerous behavioral health issues and medical problems - if left unaddressed, insomnia complicates your treatment efforts and diminishes your clients’ recovery.

Insomnia must be targeted directly - and often, simply helping your clients sleep better actually decreases their other symptoms.

In this essential training, Dr. Donn Posner, distinguished Diplomate in Behavioral Sleep Medicine and founding member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine, will teach you Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), a powerful evidence-based, gold-standard treatment to help your clients put chronic insomnia behind them. You’ll get the skills you need to:

Increase sleep efficiency so your clients consistently get the rest they need
Transform your clients’ bed into a cue for sleep so they don’t toss and turn all night
Deconstruct unhelpful beliefs to decrease anxiety about sleep
Troubleshoot sleep-related problems at any stage of therapy

Purchase today and add to your clinical toolbox the treatment that is more strongly recommended than medications to improve sleep!

Program Information

Objectives

Distinguish acute insomnia from chronic insomnia and identify treatment implications.
Conduct a thorough sleep assessment.
Analyze data from sleep diaries to inform treatment.
Employ stimulus control to strengthen the association between bed and sleep.
Conduct sleep restriction therapy to improve clients’ sleep drive.
Utilize cognitive strategies to reduce alarming sleep-related thoughts.

Outline

Sleep Disturbance Doesn’t Resolve on Its Own
Why Treating a Primary Mental Health Disorder Won’t Cure Insomnia

Insomnia as a risk factor for behavioural health and medical disorders
Treatment issues when insomnia is comorbid with depression, anxiety, and PTSD
Sleep quality concerns with co-occurring chronic pain and illness
What weakens sleep drive and disturbs circadian rhythms?
Common thoughts and behaviours that contribute to sleep-interfering arousal
How to teach clients about the 3 P’s - predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors

Insomnia-Informed Assessment
How and What to Ask Your Clients

Top questions for the initial interview
Assessments for co-occurring sleep disorders
Talking with clients about the impact of medications and drugs on sleep
Evaluate sleep continuity, discern bad sleep habits, and identify daytime symptoms of insomnia
Sleep diary and other take-home assessment resources
How to get clear, useable information about your clients’ sleep patterns

Treatment Planning with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
Behavioural Strategies to Improve Sleep and Outcomes for Primary Mental Health Disorders

Clinical practice guidelines and the state of research on insomnia treatment
Who is a good candidate for CBT-I?
Effective sleep hygiene for clients who haven’t addressed the basics
Clock watching and its implications
Sleep environment concerns
Impact of eating, substances, and exercise
Strengthen the sleep drive and circadian clock with sleep restriction therapy (SRT)
Psychoeducation on rationale and addressing clients’ fears to increase engagement
How to set the sleep window and when to extend time-in-bed
Rules for before-bed activities and strategies for waking up on time
Address conditioned arousal with Stimulus Control (SC)
- Overcoming obstacles to strengthening the association between bed and sleep
- Counter-arousal strategies
- Activities your clients can use during periods of nighttime wakefulness

Cognitive Strategies to Help Clients Change Sleep-Interfering Thoughts & Beliefs

Create a buffer zone and worry schedule for your clients
Tools to identify thoughts and beliefs that perpetuate sleep problems
Combat intrusive thoughts during sleep time
Help clients reduce sleep effort and worry about lack of sleep
Strategies to restructure expectations and thoughts
Behavioural experiments to evaluate sleeprelated thinking

Clinical Considerations
Additional Factors for the Insomnia-Informed Clinician

Best practices to address clients’ concerns about interventions
Troubleshooting insufficient progress in CBT-I
When to refer to a sleep specialist
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Copyright : 03/02/2023

Insomnia Treatment: Evidence-Based Strategies to Enrich Sleep & Boost Clinical Outcomes in Clients with PTSD, Anxiety, Chronic Pain & Depression

We all know the necessity of sleep –yet we often overlook addressing it in therapy. Your clients with PTSD, anxiety, depression and chronic pain are struggling with symptoms of those disorders, and everything is made worse when they aren’t able to sleep.

If your clients aren’t sleeping, do you know what to do about it?

In this recording, I’ll show you successful, proven techniques I’ve developed over the last decade on how to optimize your clients’ sleep – without medication! You don’t need to be a sleep specialist to implement these strategies in your office.

Discover evidence-based strategies to help your clients increase energy during the day, sleep more deeply and re-initiate sleep after it’s been disrupted. In addition, you’ll learn how to easily integrate these strategies into existing treatment for trauma, anxiety, depression and chronic pain.

Watch and discover:

New tools to assess for sleep quality & sleep disorders other than insomnia
Strategies to address conditioned wakefulness and restore your clients’ sleep drives
Sleep logs, worksheets and other tools to use in your clinical practice
Specific interventions for clients with comorbid PTSD, anxiety, depression or chronic pain

Add insomnia treatment to your therapeutic toolbox!

Program Information

Objectives

Identify sleep disorders which require referrals to a sleep centre.
Integrate strategies to build a stronger drive for deep sleep.
Discuss why CBT-I is effective for clients with co-occurring issues such as pain, depression, anxiety or trauma.
List treatment strategies clients can easily implement to manage their fatigue.
Design behavioural experiments for clients to test unhelpful beliefs about sleep.
Identify conditional arousal and teach clients strategies to reverse it.

Outline

Assessment

Sleep regulation
The elements of insomnia
Goals of assessment
Diagnostic criteria
Comorbid conditions
Other sleep disorders
When to make a referral to a sleep clinic
Take-home assessment tools
Limitations of the research & potential risks
Case Study: Sleep phase delay vs. insomnia

Stimulus Control (SC): Address Conditioned Arousal to Reduce Wakefulness

Psychoeducation for your client
Rules for reassociating the bed with sleep
Fatigue management strategies to eliminate napping
Ideas for late-night activities
Case Study: Is the client a candidate for stimulus control?

Sleep Restriction Therapy (SRT): Restore the Sleep Drive to Improve Sleep Quality

How to present rationale to your client
Calculate time-in-bed prescription
Placing the time-in-bed window
Identify & overcome obstacles to adherence
Sleep extension
How to combine SC & SRT effectively
Sleep hygiene
Case Study: Would you increase time in bed?

Counterarousal Strategies: Five MustKnow Strategies to Quiet an Active Mind

Establish a buffer zone
Scheduled thinking time
Combat excessive rumination
Mindfulness strategies
Relaxation therapies

Cognitive Therapy: Identify and Change Distorted Thoughts about Sleep

Thought records
Behavioural experiments
Socratic questioning
Case Study: Interpreting thought records

Modify Insomnia Treatment for Clients with Comorbid Disorders

PTSD

Fear of silence
Fear of loss of vigilance
Delayed bedtime
Sleep avoidance
Prolonged nightmare awakenings
Is hypnotic discontinuation necessary?

Anxiety

When stimulus control rules can’t be tolerated
Combat hastiness to get out of bed
Sleep compression: An alternative to SRT
Identify sleep anxiety vs. high arousal in bed
Considerations for panic disorder

Depression

Sleep’s impact on mood
Distorted time-in-bed to time sleeping ratio
Use of coping cards
Troubleshoot adherence problems
Worsening moods
Case Study: Struggling to get out of bed

Chronic Pain

Pain meds & sleep
Considerations for use of stimulus control
Break the association of bed & pain
When it’s physically difficult to get out of bed

Copyright : 25/06/2019

Sleep and Mental Health: Non-Medication Interventions to Restore Sleep Quality and Improve Clinical Outcomes

How many of your clients have sleep issues?

Or maybe the real question is how many of your client don’t?

Where we used to think mental health problems caused insomnia, we now know that the relationship is more circular than casual. Risky and addictive, drugs aren’t the answer. But without addressing sleep issues, and intervening in this vicious cycle, your treatment plans for mental health issues will likely be less effective and yield less successful outcomes.

You CAN help your clients improve their sleep and make your treatment of mental health issues more effective than ever before … and you don’t need to be a sleep expert to do it!

Whether you work with anxiety, depression, trauma, bipolar or any other disorders, this one-day training will give you the sleep assessment tools and treatment techniques you need to guide clients out of their sleep deprived world so you can improve clinical outcomes.

Watch this training and discover how you can:

Naturally improve sleep in clients without the use of addictive medication
Identify sleep disorders and differentiate them from mental health symptoms
Improve sleep for clients of all ages – from kids to adults
Snap clients out of sleep-depriving habits with behavior changing exercises

Purchase today, and add a new tool to your toolbox to bring greater healing to your clients through the power of sleep!

Program Information

Objectives

Analyze which mental health symptoms accompany the many sleep disorders and its clinical implications.
Assess your clients’ symptoms for sleep disorders that impair mental health to improve treatment outcomes.
Practice psychoeducation with clients to help them identify their individual optimal sleep needs for improved mental health and daily functioning.
Develop an optimal individual sleep treatment plan for your clients and implement skills to help them adopt the sleep healthy lifestyle.
Determine when referral for further sleep disorders treatment is an appropriate approach to manage symptoms.
Evaluate the mechanisms by which insufficient sleep and sleep disorders contribute to mental health problems for purposes of client psychoeducation.

Outline

Assessment Techniques to Evaluate Sleep Disorders

Sleep mechanisms and importance of circadian rhythms
Key clinical interview questions
Why your clients need a sleep diary and how to implement it
Practical screening questionnaires

Sleep Disorders Associated with Common Mental Health Disorders

Differentiate sleep symptoms vs. mental health symptoms
Prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea with co-occurring disorders
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Additional other disorders
Narcolepsy and its impact on mental health
Correlation between nightmares and suicidality
Sleep recommendations for PTSD
Behaviorally Induced Insufficient Sleep Syndrome
Insomnia increases risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
Classes of sleep disorders and their associated mental health symptoms
- Insomnia
- Circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders
- Sleep movement disorders
- Parasomnia
- Hypersomnia
- Sleep breathing disorders

The Bi-Directional Impact of Medications

Medications can interfere with sleep
Common side effects of hypnotics
Melatonin – how to naturally increase & when to use a supplement
Nutritional supplements and herbal medicine

Sleep Deprivation and Mental Health: Recognize Symptoms and Implement Solutions

5 domains of sleep deprivation
- Cognitive performance – decreases simple memory, complex problem solving and verbal fluency
- Physical performance – increases drowsy driving and auto accidents
- Physical health – weakens the immune system and increases risks of serious health issues
- Mental health – intensifies anxiety, impulsivity, and emotional liability
- Emotional intelligence – impairs moral and ethical decision making
Implement behavior-modifying exercises

Interventions to Correct Circadian Misalignment

Consequences of desynchrony with natural sleep cycle
Treatment plans to protect shift workers from anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders
Manage mania associated with jetlag
Mental health risk of night owls
Strategies for clients who frequently travel
How to regulate circadian physiology
- Body clock
- SCN in the brain
- Cellular mechanisms
Balance out melatonin rhythm

Assess Children’s Sleep Issues and Implement Strategies to Improve

ADHD, sleep disorder, or both?
Obstructive Sleep Apnea often mistaken as other mental health symptoms in children
Restless Legs Syndrome
Sleep and naps are critical for development and growth
Children’s sleep screening and recommendations
Step-by-step guide for parents to help kids sleep better

Techniques to Evaluate and Improve Teen Sleep

How to determine a teenage client’s natural circadian rhythm
Dangers of sleep deprivation in adolescents
- Increased negative risk taking
- Correlation between lack of sleep and suicidality
- Decreased academic achievement and decision making ability
- Higher rates of juvenile delinquency
- Driving drowsy and car accidents
Tools for increasing teens’ sleep
School start time – how to advocate for change

Practical Methods to Create a Sleep Healthy Lifestyle

Develop individualized healthy sleep plans for your clients – not a cookie cutter approach
Get clients to “yes” in prioritizing optimal sleep
Behavior-modifying exercises to help clients snap out of their sleep-depriving habits
Address family and couple dynamics to allow everyone healthy sleep
Tips and tricks for evening cell phone use to promote better sleep
Techniques to reinforce long-term sleep health
When to make a referral
- What clients can expect from sleep disorder treatments