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A Five – Day Intensive Workshop
Date: 14th - 18th November 2011 (10am - 4pm)
Venue: Salvation Army rooms
(691 Mt Albert Road, Royal Oak, Auckland)
Cost: $550 + GST per person
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Delivered by Dr. Leon Tan (PhD, MBACP UK) for ABACUS Counselling, Training and Supervision Ltd |
| Dr. Leon Tan is a BACP (UK) registered psychotherapist based between Sweden and New Zealand. He worked as a tenured lecturer in psychotherapy and lecturer in media-art history in Auckland before relocating for part of the year to Gothenburg in 2009. He has extensive experience treating depression, anxiety, addictions and relational conflicts, and has worked with children, teenagers and adults in a variety of settings including private practice, a government child protection service and a university health centre. He is an expert in online mental health services, having established or consulted in the development of online counselling and therapy services for a number of universities and private providers in Australia and New Zealand. Follow Leon on Twitter – http://twitter.com/hyblis |
DAY 1 Monday 14 November Morning
Introduction to the history of online counselling and therapy in New Zealand and around the world, its current status in psycho-professional circles both locally and internationally, and its uptake by clients in individual (private practice) and organizational (publicly funded) service forms. Open discussion for participants to raise issues, question popular ideas and misconceptions around online counselling and therapy (particularly its differences from face-to-face work), and collectively decide on particular points of interest to cover during the week. |
Monday 14 November Afternoon
Introduction to different modalities of online mental health services. Online mental health services have grown at a phenomenal pace over the past two decades, but mostly in the last 5-10 years. Today, online services are offered in a variety of synchronous and asynchronous (real-time or time-delayed) modalities, for example, email, instant messaging (text), mobile phone apps, Skype voice chat and videoconferencing, peer forums and virtual reality environments. Decisions about which modality to apply must be made on an individual basis, considering variables including the technologies available to clients in urban and rural areas, local and international sites, clients’ (and practitioners’) level of experience with the technological platforms, as well as the presenting problems involved. |
DAY 2 Tuesday 15 November Morning
Ethical and legal issues in the provision of online mental health services both locally and internationally. New Zealand has been relatively slow in its development of ethical guidelines for the provision of online services. As it stands, the NZAC has perhaps done the most work in this area, with the NZAP, the Psychotherapy Board, the NZPsS and the Psychology Board seriously lagging behind, despite my many communications with these organizations over the last seven years. The morning session discusses the ethics of online mental health service provision in New Zealand and also introduces ethical guidelines that have been created overseas by groups such as International Society for Mental Health Online and the Online Therapy Institute. Different countries have developed ethical guidelines for mental health service provision that may create conflicts in the provision of online services internationally. This will also be touched on, followed by a discussion on the potential for developing appropriate guidelines for specific regions and locales such as New Zealand, and parallel guidelines for NZ services for overseas clients. Participants are invited to contribute thoughts concerning local and international considerations for ethical guidelines, and will be encouraged to promote further discussion in their respective professional organizations and settings. |
Tuesday 15 November Afternoon
Online peer-therapy in virtual reality environments: A case study. The afternoon presents a case study of an American woman who recovered from lifelong social phobia through the use of Second Life and the creation of an avatar. This leads to a discussion of specific factors of online social interaction such as online disinhibition and the Proteus effect, which play a critical role in many successful cases on online therapy, whether peer or professional driven. |
DAY 3 Wednesday 16 November Morning
Security, Privacy/Anonymity/Pseudonymity, and Dealing with Emergencies. The morning session discusses the importance of secure technological platforms for mental health service provision online, client rights to privacy, issues such as the verification of identity versus the anonymity/pseudonymity of the client, and guidelines for dealing with emergencies and contra-indications for online service provision. It also discusses international examples of data breaches, and opens up a debate concerning the importance of knowing a client’s actual identity versus working with an anonymous or pseudonymous client. |
Wednesday 16 November Afternoon
Email and instant messaging based counselling and therapy. The afternoon session covers the asynchronous modality of email as well as the synchronous modality of instant messaging (both text based), discussing both the benefits and drawbacks of these approaches. Participants will be expected to work in pairs or groups of three to respond to hypothetical email presentations, and then to share these with the larger group so as to receive feedback from others as well as the presenter. |
DAY 4 Thursday 17 November Morning
Treating addictions using networked technologies. This morning’s session analyzes the success of New Zealand’s STOMP Smoking Cessation Program based on the use of text messaging on mobile phones. It also looks at the feasibility of transposing the STOMP model into other modalities, using the central concept of shifting clients from life negating habits to life affirming habits. It also discusses computerized CBT for addictions (and also for comorbid depression and dependency issues) and results of recent clinical trials. |
Thursday 17 November Afternoon
VOIP and Videoconferencing as modalities. The afternoon is devoted to covering technological platforms such as Skype which offer phone and video interactions in real-time. These modalities are perhaps closest in their psychosocial dynamics to the face-to-face clinical scenario, and for this reason are preferred options for many providers for example in the US, even though this has been changing with the development of ‘gated’ (offline) immersive virtual reality treatments ‘operated’ by psycho-professionals often in military or veteran health contexts. Benefits and drawbacks of both modalities are discussed in relation to text-based modalities. |
DAY 5 Friday 18 November Morning
Blogging and forums as self, peer based, and professional guided writing therapy interventions. This session draws on research such as that of James Pennebaker and Jeannie Wright, extending it to the realm of self and peer based writing as forms of therapeutic intervention. It presents a case study and also discusses how professionals may incorporate writing/journaling and so on within traditional face-to-face treatment programs. |
Friday 18 November Afternoon
Social Media for Outreach and Psycho-education. The afternoon covers the use of social media by psycho-professionals for the purposes of client outreach as well as psycho-education. A high percentage of Internet users in fact turn first to the web for health including mental health information, making it an important site for psycho-professionals and organizations to create a presence, provide reliable information through blogs and tweets, and also to reach out to potential new clients. Emphasis is placed on organizations developing appropriate social media usage policies. |
Registration:
$550 + GST per person Please email Sharlene at sharlene@acts.co.nz with your name, organization (if applicable), email address and phone number plus details of where an invoice can be forwarded to. Please await confirmation of your registration as participant numbers are limited. If you are unable to attend for all of the five days the cost is still $550 + GST pp
Cancellation and amendment fees:
For 30 days or more notice of cancellation – no charge; for 7-29 days notice – 50% of the fee is charged; for less than 7 days notice – no refund given |
The five days will be structured in two parts:
Morning session 10:00-12:30, Lunch 12:30-1:30, Afternoon session 1:30-4:00. Each session will have a tea/coffee break of 15 minutes midway.
Catering:
Morning tea and afternoon tea will be provided. Attendees are able to bring their own lunch or buy lunch at nearby food outlets/cafes in Royal Oak.
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