This CPD course aims to equip clinicians and allied professions working in the mental health disciplines (including but not limited to psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and mental health nurses) with some of the latest advances in the research of schizophrenia and related psychoses.

Course Description

This CPD course aims to equip clinicians and allied professions working in the mental health disciplines (including but not limited to psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and mental health nurses) with some of the latest advances in the research of schizophrenia and related psychoses. The focus is on psychopathology and clinical presentations, and the topics covered will reflect some of the most urgent and pertinent questions in the assessment, management and conceptualisation of psychotic disorders. Delivered by renowned experts in the field, we hope to challenge some deeply ingrained misconceptions about schizophrenia and related psychoses in the clinical encounter, how to understand the patients’ experience beyond mere symptoms, and offer a refreshing perspective that can influence and transform clinical practice.

 

Learning Objectives:

1. To view schizophrenia and related psychoses in the context of profound transformations of subjectivity and selfhood, usually beyond presentations of psychotic symptoms.

2. To understand and appraise evidence for delusions in schizophrenia that are not fully conceptualised as fixed, false beliefs, taking into account the experiential dimension and altered senses of self and reality.

3. To reconsider definitions of hallucinations in schizophrenia and be familiar with the non-sensory features of hallucinations that may impact their assessment and treatment, especially in the context of first-episode psychosis.

4. To understand and appraise insight in psychosis and its clinical relevance, and to reflect on the extent to which insight is based on brain function.

5. To understand and appraise the roles emotion and affect play in psychosis psychopathology, and how the predictive processing framework may be useful in explaining and integrating neuroscientific and phenomenological accounts.

 

Please note that the Trainee Rate for this course can be used by delegates who are NHS trainees (including medical students and student nurses), PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.