The Parnell, Hotel and Conference Center 10 - 20 Gladstone RoadParnellAuckland Start: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 9:00 AM End: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 4:30 PM Time Zone: New Zealand Time Add to my calendar Outlook Calendar Google Calendar Yahoo! Calendar iCal Calendar Remind Me
This one-day workshop aims to prepare experienced rehabilitation and mental health clinicians to practice Nocebo-Hypothesis Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (NH-CBT), an interdisciplinary treatment for Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) that has been shown to eliminate functional symptoms in around 90% of people treated, across a variety of symptom types.The workshop will include an outline of the changing views of the aetiology of FND, an introduction to nocebo effects, and description of the 5 stages of NH-CBT: understanding the diagnostic evidence, assessment, psychoeducation, physical treatment, and relapse prevention. Different treatment adaptations will be summarised for each of the main FND symptom types. There will also be some discussion about functional cognitive disorders and "functional overlay" (the existence of FND alongside structural neurological damage or disease), and associated implications for treatment.Dr Matt RichardsonDr Matt Richardson is a clinical psychologist / neuropsychologist working at the Toroa Centre in Dunedin, New Zealand (a regional neurorehabilitation service). He was born and trained in the UK, gaining his Bachelor's degree from the University of St Andrews (Scotland), and his clinical doctorate at University College London. He moved to New Zealand in 2008, and soon started working with patients with functional neurological symptoms for the first time. He quickly became disenchanted with somatisation/conversion explanations, and devised a new treatment in 2011, now named Nocebo Hypothesis Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (NH-CBT). He went on to publish a consecutive case series, which achieved 93% full remission of a range of functional neurological symptoms. Since publication in early 2018, he has been training others in his treatment protocol across Australasia. This has included an extensive workshop at the Australian College of Clinical Neuropsychologists' annual conference in 2018, an invitation to speak at the Neurologists' Association of New Zealand annual meeting, as well as workshops in all major New Zealand cities.In 2020, he secured funding from the Health Research Council (New Zealand) to run a randomised controlled trial into the effectiveness of the motor form of NH-CBT. This trial has almost finished the treatment phase, with treatment resulting in very similar levels of success to the initial pilot. He has also just completed a pilot consecutive case series for NH-CBT with functional seizures, with the majority of participants becoming seizure free at treatment end.He also practices sports psychology, and has worked with New Zealand #1's in two different sports.