Registration closes @ 9am on 10.11.25
‘We think by feeling what is there to know?’ is a quote from the poem The Waking by Theodore Roethke and provides a useful metaphor for understanding the role and purpose of felt sense in the construction of meaning in therapy.
This half day workshop will focus on the how clinicians might harness felt sense when working with trauma as an aspect of clinical presentations, both collaboratively with the client and for themselves in clinical supervision. The workshop will examine the science of CBT with reference to Teasdale’s Interacting Cognitive Sub-systems (ICS) model (Teasdale and Barnard, 1993) and their formulation of felt sense and implicational meaning. The ICS model identifies two levels of meaning:
- Propositional Meaning which operates at a specific level of meaning, explicit, can be conveyed in a single sentence and is not difficult to comprehend “knowing in your head”.
- Implicational Meaning: which operates at a more holistic and generic level of meaning and represents recurring patterns, themes and complex interrelationships derived from experience. This level cannot be easily conveyed and synthesis of IM is associated with a “felt sense”. “knowing in your heart”. Only this level is associated with emotion.
As clinicians we often observe what is termed the ‘head heart lag’. When working with cognition clients frequently say ‘I see what you are saying but I don’t really believe it’. Targeting the implicational meaning is necessary to influence this lag.
From this point consideration will then be given to the art of CBT and how poetry, song lyrics, film and literature may be creatively used to bring this implicational meaning to the CBT formulation and be used as a basis for the craft of CBT, making a clinical intervention. This process will be illustrated using clinical examples. Participants will have opportunity to examine their own clinical practice and supervision using the lens of felt sense and implicational meaning as a way of enhancing self-reflection, thus building therapist confidence and competence (Prasko, Ociskova, Abeltina et al 2023).
Learning Outcomes
Participants will have opportunity to:
- Identify an evidence base for the use of poetry, song lyrics, film and literature in CBT
- Engage with case examples to develop an understanding of how implicational meaning and felt sense can be harnessed for use as part of CBT formulation and treatment
- To reflect upon their own CBT clinical practice and explore through small group discussion how these mediums may be harnessed to help them in both therapy and clinical supervision
References
Prasko J, Ociskova M, Abeltina M, Krone I, Kantor K, Vanek J, Slepecky M, Minarikova K, Mozny P, Piliarova M, Bite I. (2023) The importance of self-experience and self-reflection in training of cognitive behavioral therapy. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. Jun 14;44(3):152-163. PMID: 37392442.
Roe, C. and Garland, A. (2011) The Use of Poetry in the Construction of Meaning in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy and Mental Health Studies Mental Health Review Journal vol. 16 (3) 93-101.
Teasdale, J.D. (1993) Emotion and two kids of meaning: Cognitive therapy and applied cognitive science. Behaviour, Research and therapy, 31, 339-54
Presenter
Anne Garland, Consultant Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist
Dr Anne Garland, Consultant Psychotherapist is the lead for depression at OCTC. Anne is a mental health nurse by profession, trained in both behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy. Anne has 32 years’ experience of working clinically using CBT and has specialised in treating persistent, treatment resistant depression for the last twenty-eight years. Anne has a national and international reputation as a CBT trainer and has published widely in the field of CBT for depression. Anne has been involved both as a collaborator and grant holder in funded RCT’s the most recent of which tested the clinical and cost effectiveness of CBT in the treatment of depression delivered via the Nottingham Specialist Depression Service, established in 2009. This is a unique service within England offering NICE recommended pharmacological and psychological treatments for persistent, treatment resistant depression within a collaborative care model.
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.