Speaker(s):
Presentation:
Expanding the role of evidence-based psychotherapy is critical to effective and efficient competency restoration treatment. Although pharmacological treatment is widely accepted as the primary intervention for competency attainment, for some patients, medications alone are not sufficient to achieve this goal. Certain psychotherapeutic treatments have been empirically established to successfully address particular psychiatric symptoms, which underlie the legal deficits and/or contribute to the psycho-legal deficits of many incompetent defendants. This presentation will: review different manualized psychotherapeutic approaches that can be used to address specific competency deficits; describe the process for identifying patients whose competency deficits would benefit from psychotherapeutic treatments; and provide case examples using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
Objectives:
- Learn how psychotherapy fits into a competency restoration program.
- Learn to identify patients with competency-related deficits appropriate for psychotherapy treatment.
- Learn how three evidence-based therapies can be applied in competency restoration treatment by addressing specific interfering symptoms and building psycho-legal skills.
Slides and Handouts: