Role play audio

Put some audio online today for a delegate from last week's motivational interviewing course.  We role played working with a number of different clients and recorded them to reflect on our practice.

Clients included:

‘Douglas’ - a man aged 25 years, who lives in a homeless persons shelter and is considering moving out. You meet Douglas while working as an occupational therapist in outreach. He really hates some aspects of living in the shelter, but is unsure if he’d be better off there or trying to find his own accommodation.

‘George’ - a man aged 65, who has had a lower limb amputation following complications of type 2 diabetes. George has been referred by domiciliary care as he has so far declined all offers of physical adaptations to his home.

 ‘Jane’ - a woman aged 45, who has been in the same job for 20 years and finds it unfulfilling. Jane heard about life coaching from a friend who found it useful and thought that you might help her decide whether she wants a change of career.

 ‘Mary’ - a woman aged 50 years, with a body mass index of 40.  Mary has been referred by her GP, as lifestyle advice has not resulted in the weight loss he has advised.

We focused on the four key areas of motivational interviewing:

• Expressing empathy
• Rolling with resistance
• Developing discrepancy
• Supporting self-efficacy

Our next course is on Wednesday 24^th November 2010. For further details and to book your place online see the online store.

Cluj-Napoca Day 4

OK - getting a bit tired now - standing by a poster for an hour at a time is quite wearing on the feet.  You can probably tell this by the look on my face in today's picture.

The paper that made the greatest impression on me today was the Keynote, by Prof. Mircea Miclea, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Prof Miclea discussed in detail the Computer Mediated Psychotherapy intervention that he and colleagues have developed: paxonline.  What makes it distinctive is that it is multi-user platform, creating a community of learning that includes patients, family physicians and psychotherapists.  It also offers a stepped care intervention, designed to meet patients' needs at the point of initial help-seeking, rather than assuming that all people with mental health problems will want to, or be able to access face to face psychotherapy.

Although it's in Romanian, and won't go online until later this month, I think I'll have a look and run it through Google Translate.

Marking dissertations by our Health & Lifestyle Management students

10th May 2010

Marking dissertations by our Health & Lifestyle Management students

Back from a short break, and marking dissertation reports by our BSc Hons Health & Lifestyle Management students.

Interesting topics, including:
Knowledge and experience of using motivational interviewing: a study with rehabilitation professionals
Barriers and facilitators to physical activity: a study of online discussion forums.
Differences in physical activity between students with pre-paid gym memberships and those without: applying the theory of planned behaviourT
he relationship between personality traits and physical activity: applying the theory of planned behaviour

Our HLM graduates have a range of knowledge and some very practical skills, including motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioural coaching and intervention mapping.

The first cohort complete their degrees this summer and I am hoping that they do well in the jobs market.