The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Psychotherapy Section, under the leadership of César Alfonso (USA) and Allan Tasman (USA) is partnering with the Philippine Psychiatric Association (PPA) to sponsor this international scientific meeting. We are indebted to the PPA local meeting co-chairs Alma Jimenez, Constantine Della and Vanessa Cainhug for their invaluable assistance orchestrating the program. This conference has as a primary objective to demonstrate the importance of cultural adaptations in psychotherapy in every day psychiatric practice across all clinical settings throughout the world.
Cultural adaptation of psychotherapies seeks compatibility and alignment with values and belief systems, cultural idioms of distress, health-seeking behaviors, and culture-specific understanding of disease processes and illness experiences.
Conference presenters will address how to culturally adapt psychotherapies in non-Western countries, presenting a framework for adaptation to achieve better clinical outcomes. The adaptation framework includes adjustments in therapy techniques that incorporate family to better engage individual patients, providing a culturally consonant rationale for therapy, sensitivity to religious beliefs, and fluency with nuances of language and non-verbal communication. Participants will share clinical experiences and research data of cultural adaptations of psychotherapies designed for patients with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, stressor related disorders and psychoses.
What are the common curative factors in psychotherapy? Research studies validate the clinical observations that specific aspects of psychotherapy practice are curative. These include: empathy (with sub-components of compassion, affective sharing, synchronized mirroring, listening to expressed intense emotions while maintaining composure and serenity), goal consensus and collaboration, establishing a therapeutic alliance (through safety, consistency, attunement, properly anticipating and attending to emotional needs), positive regard and affirmation, mastery, congruence/genuineness, and mentalization (developing the capacity to understand nuances of emotions, the emotional world of the self, the emotional world of others, and how emotions drive actions and one’s actions impact the emotions of others, resulting in either proximity, intimacy or alienation). These factors constitute the main transformative elements in psychotherapy.
In addition, in all psychotherapies affective regulation (regulation of emotional reactions, decreasing amplitude and over reactivity that may interfere with successful relationships) is of essence. In cognitive behavioral therapies maladaptive patterns are identified and cognitive distortions corrected, such as catastrophic thinking. Traumatic memories can be remembered in disjointed ways when emotional memories surge and overwhelm the person. Narrative reconstruction has the effect of helping persons who experienced trauma effectively release negative emotions and decrease hyperarousal and avoidance. In psychodynamic therapies conflicts that may be outside of conscious awareness are uncovered and verbally processed. Revisiting past experiences, especially traumatic ones, helps understand how to connect past experiences with present concerns or symptoms in order to forge a better future. Psychotherapy is thus practiced along a past-present-future continuum.
Psychotherapy, in addition to providing symptomatic relief, promotes gains in functioning and improves quality of life. Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry researchers have demonstrated that psychotherapy not only decreases medical morbidity but also reduces mortality.
A psychotherapy process oscillates from dealing with the here and now, doing retrospective analyses and narrative reconstructions and prospective planning. Psychotherapy pays special attention to the developmental milestones relevant to each phase of life, such as trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, integrity, and balancing self-reliance with interdependence.
Neuroimaging findings corroborate that structural changes and changes in metabolic rate in the brain occur as a result of psychotherapy. With advances in neuroscience we now understand that psychotherapy is a biological treatment. As with medication treatments, there is a dose effect with psychotherapy and patients may obtain greater benefit from either longer-term treatments or rigorous short-term therapies. Episodic psychotherapy could be beneficial when a commitment to long-term therapy or a standardized rigorous short-term protocol is not possible.
This conference invited international delegates from all continents who are members of the WPA Psychotherapy Section. The WPA Psychotherapy Section has approximately 200 members from 40 countries and seeks to provide a forum for the collegial exchange of diverse ideas and theoretical constructs in order to advance the practice of psychotherapy treatments within psychiatry.
This conference will include:
- Keynote Addresses (45 minutes)
- Plenary Sessions (30 minutes)
- State of the Art Symposia (90 minutes)
- Panel Presentations (60 minutes)
- Interactive Workshops (60 minutes)
- Clinical Case Conferences (60 minutes)
- Poster Session-Clinical
- Poster Session-Research
The WPA Psychotherapy Section is inclusive and all treatment modalities will be featured, including CBT, DBT, IPT, motivational interviewing, supportive psychotherapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Conference participants will be able to compare and contrast theoretical approaches and integrate modalities to better tailor treatments. Common factors of all therapies will be discussed, and cultural adaptations will be highlighted.
Plenary speakers, symposia presenters, and workshop facilitators will cover a wide range of relevant topics. WPA Psychotherapy Section Special Interest Groups (SIGs) presenters will organize panels and symposia. The WPA Psychotherapy Section SIGs and co-chairs are:
- Psychotherapy in Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry
Feranindhya Agiananda (Indonesia)
David Teo Choon Liang (Singapore)
- Psychotherapy with Adolescents and Young Adults
Luca Giorgini (Italy)
Vanessa K. Cainhug (Philippines)
- Psychotherapy in Late Life/Geriatrics
Kanthee Anantapong (Thailand/UK)
Marco Christian Michael (USA)
- Psychotherapy with LGBTQ+ populations
Asher Aladjem (USA)
Wei Han-Ting (David Wei) (Taiwan)
- Psychotherapy with Refugees/Survivors of Trauma
Amir Hosein Jalali Nadoushan (Iran)
Kateřina Duchoňová (Czech Republic)
- Cultural Adaptations of CBT
Reham Aly (Egypt)
Haifa Mohammad Algahtani (Saudi Arabia/Bahrain)
- Cultural Adaptations of IPT
Xavier Pereira (Malaysia)
Scott Stuart (USA)
- Cultural Adaptations of Third Wave Psychotherapies
Toshitaka Ii (Japan)
Loo Jiann Lin (Malaysia)
- Cultural Adaptations of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Alma Jimenez (Philippines)
Saman Tavakoli (Iran)
- Cultural Adaptations of Supportive Psychotherapy
Erin Crocker (USA)
César Alfonso (USA)
- Cultural Adaptations of Motivational Interviewing
Faiz Tahir (Malaysia)
We would like to thank the PPA for hosting the WPA Psychotherapy Section and also express our gratitude to the cosponsoring organizations for their dedication and cooperation to ensure success and academic rigor.
It is with enthusiasm that we invite you to join us in Manila for this historic conference.
Sincerely,
César A. Alfonso, M.D
Chair, World Psychiatric Association Psychotherapy Section
Allan Tasman, M.D
Co-Chair, World Psychiatric Association Psychotherapy Section
Chair, World Psychiatric Association Education in Psychiatry Section
For additional information please contact:
E-mail: cddella@up.edu.ph and cesaralfonso@mac.com
CO-SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS:
