Registration closes @ 9am on 29.05.26
Death anxiety is a term used to describe people’s fear or negative feelings towards death or dying. Some people may focus on their own death, such as ruminating on all the things they will miss out on after they die, or what it will be like to not exist anymore. Some people may experience doubts about the nature of existence itself, such as questioning what will happen to them after death. Others may worry about the process of dying, such as whether their death will be painful, or what their final moments will be like. Some may be distressed at the idea of losing a loved one. They may worry about how they will cope with their loved ones’ death or that they will somehow cause the death of their loved one without meaning to. For some there is a phobic avoidance and fear of anything related to death (e.g., going near cemeteries or funeral parlours). All the experiences above are in many ways part of being human, but death anxiety is a problem when it is either sufficiently time-consuming, distressing or interfering in one’s life. The concept cuts across different diagnoses including some types of Health Anxiety, OCD, specific phobias, and panic disorder. Unfortunately, death anxiety may not be adequately targeted in standard protocols for these disorders and this workshop will try to remedy this with a specific focus on the fears of death and dying. Treatment components will be discussed, centring on CBT, which is the most evidence-based treatment for death anxiety.
By the end of workshop, participants will
- Understand the phenomenology of death anxiety, and its relationship with relevant diagnoses
- Be knowledgeable about a cognitive behavioral model and have a understanding of the cognitive processes and behaviours that maintain death anxiety. This includes the intolerance of uncertainty, magical thinking, the awfulness of dying, as well as avoidance, safety seeking and checking behaviours related to death.
- Develop alternative ways of thinking about common beliefs in death for example thoughts about the awfulness of not existing or the intolerance of not knowing will happen.
- Use appropriate exposure/ behavioural experiments for death and dying and consider what expectations are being tested. Different tasks will be discussed from writing out one’s funeral wishes and obituary, painting one’s coffin or collecting “memento mori”.
- Focus on living life to the full now as an alternative to focussing on death and dying
References
Menzies, R.E., & Menzies, R.G. (2021). Mortals: How the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/self-help-practical/Mortals-Rachel-E-Menzies-and-Ross-G-Menzies-9781760879167
Menzies, R.E., & Veale, D. (2021). Free Yourself from Death Anxiety: A CBT Self-Help Guide for a Fear of Dying. Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and Philadelphia
Menzies, R.E., & Veale, D. (2021) Creative approaches to treating the dread of death and death anxiety. In: Existential Concerns and Cognitive-Behavioral Procedures: An Integrative Approach to Mental Health. Menzies, R.G, Menzies, R,E, Dingle, G. (Eds). Springer: New York.
Certificate of Attendance
A digital certificate that states the hours of live participation in the workshop will be emailed to you after the training event. You must attend the workshop live to receive a certificate.
New: Workshop recording is now available to attendees
By attending this workshop I understand I am giving my consent for the workshop to be video recorded and for this video recording to be available to people attending the workshop live and for it to be sold separately, for the amount of time determined by OCTC and outlined in the purchase agreement. My name, if displayed onscreen, and my image will make up part of this recording. Recordings are the property of OCTC and making copies of these recordings or sharing login details is not permitted. Please do not reveal details which may compromise the anonymity of clients.
The recording will be available to view for a period of three months.
Presenter
David Veale
David Veale is a Consultant Psychiatrist and leads a national outpatient and residential unit service for people with severe treatment refractory Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) at the South London and Maudsley Trust. He is a Visiting Reader in Cognitive Behaviour Therapies at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. He is a member of the group revising the diagnostic guidelines for ICD11 for Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders for the World Health Organization. He was a member of the group that wrote the NICE guidelines on OCD and BDD in 2006 and chaired the NICE Evidence Update on OCD and BDD in 2013. He is a Past President of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies. He is a current Trustee of the charities OCD Action and the BDD Foundation. His website is www.veale.co.uk
Additional Information
Cancellation & changes policy
If you cancel more than 14 days prior to your booked event, we will refund your fee minus a charge of 15% to cover our administration costs. We regret that cancellations 14 days or less before the booked event cannot be refunded or changed/transferred.
If you wish to change/transfer your booking after confirmation we will do our best to accommodate you if you notify us 14 days prior to your booked event, and if there is space to do so. However there will be an administration charge of £15 per change/transfer.
Confidentiality
Workshops often contain clinical material. This is always anonymised as far as possible but delegates are none the less reminded to respect confidentiality.
All that is discussed in your therapy sessions will be treated as confidential, with the following exceptions.
We are required to seek supervision by our professional body (The British Psychological Society or equivalent) as a means of ensuring good practice. We will usually inform your referrer of your progress, but the details that we disclose will be discussed with you. We do have a statutory obligation to break confidentiality under rare circumstances, namely, if we believe that a client is of danger to themselves or to others (under the Mental Health Act, 2001) or if we believe that a child is at actual risk of physical or sexual abuse (The Children Act, Section 47, 1989).
If we felt that it would be helpful to request additional medical, social or legal information, we could only do this with your consent. Similarly, should another medical, social or legal professional request information from us, we would not release this without your consent.
Disclaimer
OCTC makes every effort to ensure that this programme is delivered as advertised. However, should a presenter have to cancel, we will endeavour to find another suitable presenter. We will inform attendees as soon as is reasonably practical and, if requested, will offer a refund. In the rare event that we are unable to substitute a presenter, we may cancel a workshop and refund payments already made by attendees. OCTC will not refund travel and accommodation costs that attendees may incur.
All the workshops in this programme are carried out by highly experienced therapists and trainers. The individual presenter is responsible for the content of the workshop and any views expressed do not necessarily represent those of OCTC.
Although highly informative, none of the open workshops or workshop series confer a formal qualification or assurance of competence in CBT (or a specialist area of CBT) since we are unable to assess attendee competency within the training event. However, credit and award-bearing courses that lead to formal qualifications are offered by OCTC in conjunction with the University of Oxford. More about these courses is available on our website www.octc.uk
Levels of competence
Before booking a place on a workshop, please ensure that it is pitched at the appropriate level of competence for you. The guide to levels is as follows:
Basic
Basic workshops are for people from a variety of backgrounds, who have at least one year’s clinical experience. Cognitive behavioural knowledge is not necessary for attendance at these workshops, though in practice, a number of attendees will have some skills in the area, and are refreshing/updating their knowledge.
Intermediate
Intermediate workshops are directed towards people who already have knowledge of CBT, and experience in using cognitive formulations and treatment methods – for instance, they are able to identify and test automatic thoughts, and design behavioural experiments. Most participants will be using CBT as part of their clinical practice, and may still be acquiring new CBT skills.
Advanced
Advanced courses are directed towards those professionals who use CBT routinely as part of their clinical practice. They have probably undertaken a significant number of training courses and/or workshops, and use a broad range of cognitive behavioural strategies to work with a range of presentations at varying levels of complexity.
Making reservations
Bookings can only be considered confirmed after we have received your online registration or application form and payment (or invoicing details, including an official purchase order document).
The registration closing date for each workshop is shown on the workshop description page. Please note that no applications received after this deadline will be permitted.
If you are booking a workshop place for someone else, you must complete your own details in the billing field, but ENTER THE WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS NAME/ADDRESS in the shipping field. If you wish to order items using a paper order form instead of online, you can view or download an order form in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Once downloaded, print it out, fill it in, and send off with your payment [cheque made payable to OXFORD HEALTH NHS FOUNDATION TRUST] to the address on the form.
Refreshments
The cost of the workshops includes hot drinks on arrival, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but not usually lunch unless stated. However, for workshops that do include lunch, if you have any special dietary requirements please let us know at the time of application.
Accessibility requirements
We welcome applications from diverse backgrounds. If you have any particular needs, please contact us
prior to booking.