The Psychologically-informed Physiotherapist

 

Enhancing connections

A psychological framework to optimise the therapeutic relationship for enhanced outcomes in physiotherapy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are delighted to announce our brand new workshop series, The Psychologically-informed Physiotherapist. The first workshop focuses on enhancing the therapeutic relationship.

 

What prompted us to devise the Psychologically-informed Physiotherapist?

“Over the years, I have observed that physiotherapy research and practice has hugely improved its understanding of the role that psychological factors play in our therapeutic encounters with patients. Much of this improved knowledge has focused on how to assess and screen for psychosocial factors and “barriers to recovery”. This is important work and has helped to identify key factors that might play a role in our outcomes with patients. However for me, the big gap is in what we should actually do with our patients. In my view, screening questionnaires and outcome measures should not be used to refuse patients treatment or triage them away from physiotherapy departments. We need to develop our psychological skills and techniques with our patients in order to foster more effective therapeutic interventions. Working closely for over a decade with Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Róisín Joyce and our team of psychologists and psychotherapists at EBTC has helped me integrate psychological knowledge into my day-to-day clinical practice. I think that this has been the most important personal clinical development that I have made in recent years.” (Eoin Ó Conaire)

 

What is covered in this course?

The focus of our first one-day course is on applying psychological principles and practice to help physiotherapists to develop stronger and more effective therapeutic alliances with their patients.

With a combined clinical experience of over 50 years, specialist Clinical Psychologist, Dr Róisín Joyce and specialist Physiotherapist, Eoin Ó Conaire have teamed-up to design a course which:

• Outlines key evidence demonstrating the importance of the therapeutic alliance in influencing positive outcomes in physiotherapy
• Highlights the key obstacles to developing optimal therapeutic alliance and helps participants to develop ways of identifying and evaluating these obstacles in therapeutic encounters
• Provides a safe space for clinicians to stand back from and reflect on their practice, think about the types of patients that they find difficult to work with and why this might be
• Introduces the three systems psychological model of emotion regulation
• Provides techniques and opportunities to practice using this model personally and with patients in order to enhance the therapeutic relationship
• Summarises the physiotherapy-specific literature relating to enhancement of the therapeutic relationship
• Applies the psychological framework to different clinical scenarios to help participants enhance the quality of their therapeutic interactions

After this course physiotherapists will be able to immediately apply the psychological framework to their clinical practice and therefore enhance therapeutic alliance and clinical outcomes.

 

Who is this course aimed at?

This course is aimed at all physiotherapists irrespective of grade or clinical area. This course is also appropriate for registered physical therapists, osteopaths and chiropractors.

 

Next course

Friday 30th September, 2022

Venue: Evidence-Based Therapy Centre, Galway

Price: Early-bird (if you book before 31st July): €200. Full price: €220

CPD points: 7 hours

To book: Call the clinic on 091 727777 or contact Maria Burke / Jennifer Power (Practice Secretary) secretary@ebtc.ie

 

About the tutors

Eoin Ó Conaire

Lead Physiotherapist

Eoin Ó Conaire is an award-winning chartered physiotherapist and shoulder specialist. Since qualifying from the University of Brighton with first class honours in 1999, he has gathered a huge breadth and depth of experience. This has included working at large London teaching hospitals, professional and elite sport and in private practice. As Musculoskeletal Clinical Lead and lead Extended Scope Practitioner at Central London Community Healthcare, he developed a specialist orthopaedic triage and treatment service and worked clinically in the Upper Limb service. He also set up and ran an ultrasound-guided injection service and in collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Lewis developed and validated the first physiotherapy-led arthrographic hydrodistension service for Frozen Shoulder.

Academically he has gained an MSc (Advancing Practice) with distinction from the University of Birmingham, been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented his work at international conferences. He was awarded the MACP MSc research prize in 2009 and Central London Community Healthcare therapist of the year in 2011. Eoin also regularly teaches this Shoulder Masterclass. This distils his considerable clinical and academic knowledge into a two-day highly practical course to help physiotherapists to improve the management of shoulder pain. In 2021 Eoin started his PhD studies under the supervision of internationally renowned shoulder researcher Professor Filip Struyf at the University of Antwerp.

Dr Róisín Joyce

Lead Clinical Psychologist

Dr Róisín Joyce is an experienced Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of Evidence-Based Therapy Centre. After completing a BA in Psychology at the National University of Ireland (Galway), Róisín completed her doctoral training at Oxford University in 2005. Since then, Róisín has completed additional training in a number of specialist therapeutic models including Schema Therapy, Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS), Compassion Focused Therapy and Eye Movement Desentisisation and reprossing (EMDR).

Since completing her training, Róisín has worked as a highly specialist Clinical Psychologist in adult mental health psychology settings.  For seven of these, Róisín worked in a NHS multi-disciplinary community mental health team, supporting people with severe, enduring and complex mental health difficutlies.  As part of this role, Róisín designed and ran a hugely successful group for people with a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, helping them to recognise and manage signs and symptoms of a relapse.  Róisín also took the lead on implementing an intensive group therapy programme for people with emotion regulation difficulties across East Berkshire. Róisín also set up and led a specialist Primary Care Psychology service offering brief psychological interventions to people with mild/moderate mental health difficulties and a psychological service in an oncology and palliative care setting.

Róisín is passionate about sharing her skills and knowledge and has been supervising and teaching other professionals as part of all of her roles. Róisín is a Chartered Psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland (Ps.S.I) and a member of the Division of Clinical Psychology.

 

About Evidence-Based Therapy Centre

In 2012, Eoin and Róisín set up Evidence-Based Therapy Centre in Galway. They have a shared vision to develop a service which puts into practice the highest quality research evidence to help optimise physical and mental health. This combined with their clinical expertise and an emphasis on working collaboratively with their patients can provide the best possible outcomes.

Over the past 9 years Eoin and Róisín have worked closely together to put into practice their shared vision. Evidence-Based Therapy Centre has organically grown into a thriving therapy centre with 15 therapists working across different specialisms including Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy, Women’s & Men’s Health, Adult Mental Health, Psychosexual and Couples therapy, Family therapy, Perinatal therapy, Adult Autism and ADHD assessment and Clinical Health psychology. They provide supervision, mentorship and support to the in-house therapists but also to therapists working in other organisations and are now developing the training and development arm of Evidence-Based Therapy Centre to share their clinical knowledge, experience and expertise.