Mental Health CE Courses for Psychologists

Gender-affirming care including hormones and surgery are evidence-based treatments that reduce gender dysphoria in transgender and gender non-conforming people, but many face barriers accessing this care. Clinicians need training on appropriately diagnosing gender dysphoria, assessing readiness for hormones per WPATH guidelines, and managing comorbid psychiatric conditions. This course provides comprehensive information and practice guidelines for providing gender-affirming hormone therapy to transgender adults.

Effective clinical practice with LGBT populations requires a basic understanding of LGBT concepts and terms, presenting problems, and evidence-based interventions. This workshop describes the fundamentals for assessment and therapy with LGBT patients through a discussion of best practices, language use guidelines, and ethical considerations. The workshop explores the concepts of sex, sexuality, and gender and defines common terms used to describe LGBT identities. Health disparities, co-occurring mental health problems, and presenting clinical concerns among LGBT populations are explored through the lens of Minority Stress Theory. Finally, ethical considerations for confidentiality, informed consent, and evidence-based therapy practice are discussed.

The course will offer an introductory lecture on the fundamental theories and philosophies underpinning Dialectical Behavior. With these principles as a foundation, the course will help participants generate theoretically coherent case conceptualization and improve the practice of DBT.

It is well documented that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on the mental health of young people in high school and college, with increases in anxiety, depression, and executive function disorders. In particular, the class of 2024, those students who entered high school or college at the height of the pandemic and are now scheduled to graduate in 2024, may be the most affected. This course will review the environmental impact of the pandemic, and how it affected student life experiences, and disrupted these students emotionally and academically and will describe how to assess and intervene with this population.

According to recent research and statistics, Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMAD)s are highly prominent in the Latina immigrant community. Furthermore, it has been extremely difficult to identify PMADs and to offer traditional treatment protocols and interventions. Many cultural norms and socio-political and economic barriers influence the recognition of PMADs and access to services. This presentation will review various cultural beliefs and social barriers that prevent identification and treatment. Additionally, there will be a discussion about potentially effective and non-traditional approaches to working with vulnerable Latina clients. Finally, a proposal of culturally responsive models will be provided as a therapeutic framework.

This course reviews present day diagnosis and treatment of substance use disorders, and the relationship between addiction theory and practice. Contemporary sociological theories are outlined, with an exploration of the history of addiction in societies. A multi-level, holistic theoretical approach is introduced to inform the design of policy and interventions.

This course is intended to explore strategies to engage parents and change parenting approaches for children displaying oppositional behavior.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common behavioral diagnostic group in children and adolescents. Signs and symptoms emerge, in most cases, in the second year of life. However, all children are very active and tend to have short attention spans in the preschool years. Diagnosis must be carried out within the context of the range of typical behaviors at each age. Interventions also need to be age-appropriate. While ADHD is often referred to as a mental disorder, it may be far more useful to think of it as a developmental delay with intervention focused on the development of skills rather than the amelioration of a disorder.

Infant Mental Health (IMH) offers a comprehensive framework and highly effective therapeutic approach for working with young children and their families. This course will describe the IMH principles and highlight key strategies to effectively support families with young children. Moreover, this course will also include therapeutic approaches for working with Latino children and their families.

This introductory course is designed to empower clinicians to more effectively identify the traumatic experiences that may be informing their client’s presenting concerns and to holistically conceptualize the impact those experiences may have had on their functioning. Towards those ends, it will introduce viewers to the current and historical sociopolitical contexts in which trauma and PTSD are understood, the range of experiences that may elicit an acute and/or posttraumatic response that go beyond “criterion A” events, the unique and shared symptoms presentations that may arise in vivo, the array of intra-and-interpersonal factors that both influence and protect against them, as well as the toll these experiences can have on an individual and their communities across the lifespan. The impetus for action laden within the material presented during this course, informed by the understanding viewers will develop regarding the now indisputable, holistic impact of trauma on the individual and our society, will function to highlight the need for interdisciplinary collaboration across the helping and medical professions to prevent and treat the consequences of trauma.