Working with long-term physical illness and unexplained symptoms

Patients with long term and medically unexplained physical symptoms present in a range of settings across all areas of medicine. Many clinical presentations are poorly explained by existing solely by anxiety-based treatment models. This workshop will provide clinicians with specific assessment and management skills based upon the five areas® assessment CBT model - and focus upon a range of interventions to help the patient use experiments and structured problem solving plans to improve how they feel.

After you have attended this course you should be able to:

• Describe the range of illness responses and understand these using a cognitive behavioural framework
• Help make sense of the patients current presentation – including how to assess complex presentations such as chronic fatigue, long covid and pain      
• Discover an engaging language that helps introduce the impact of illness to patients in acceptable ways
• Identify factors that are worsening how the person feels, and choose realistic targets for change
• Help patients reattribute the causes of their symptoms
• Describe in detail a plan to increase activity levels in order to overcome avoidance and reduced activity in the face of symptoms

The workshop content covers key content from the Overcoming functional neurological symptoms book: a five areas approach which has been evaluated in a MRC-funded RCT published in the journal Neurology. Delegates will receive a copy of the book which can be copied freely for use in your own personal clinical work.

To successfully join the event online, you will need:

• access to a reliable internet connection;
• a PC or laptop with a camera, microphone and speakers,
• access to Zoom - we recommend having the Zoom app installed to your desktop.

The session will not be recorded, so attendance is mandatory