Professor Tracey Wade, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Flinders University, South Australia

Workshop: Ten-session cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT-T) for non-underweight eating disorders: Key principles and techniques

Individual cognitive-behavioural therapy for eating disorders (CBT-ED) is well established as a leading therapy for the range of eating disorder cases. However, compared to CBT for other psychological disorders, it is relatively long and expensive, limiting the number of people who can be offered the therapy. Therefore, a new, brief form of CBT has been developed for non-underweight patient (body mass index ≥ 18.5), lasting 10 rather than 20 sessions (CBT-T). This therapy focuses on evidence-based principles of early change that are pertinent for any psychological disorder. Outcomes from CBT-T are comparable with those of conventional 20-session CBT-ED.

This workshop will focus on the key principles and skills needed to deliver CBT-T, using a combination of didactic and interactive methods. The workshop will cover the following topics:

• The evidence that early change when treating psychopathology is desired, and how to encourage this,
• The evidence-base for CBT-T and the principles of CBT-T, including engaging the patient in change from the start; the use of protocols; and handling therapy interfering behaviours.
• Key skills to use from CBT-ED in delivering CBT-T including use of early and rapid nutritional change; exposure, based on inhibitory learning principles; behavioural experiments; weighing; body-image work; relapse prevention.
• The importance of effective supervision.
• Exploration of how attendees can implement CBT-T in their own clinical setting.

The ideas presented in this workshop are based on the book: Waller G, Turner H, Tatham M, Mountford VA, Wade TD. (2019). Brief Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Non-Underweight Patients: CBT-T for Eating Disorders. Abingdon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Keynote: Tackling key areas of perfectionism across prevention and treatment

Perfectionism in young people is on the rise. While psychotherapist Asa Don Brown says that perfectionists are not all negative, miserable, unhappy and over-controlling individuals, Rowan Atkinson begs to differ and believes perfectionism is more of disease than a quality. This keynote will tease out the harmful and helpful aspects of perfectionism, and why it can so often lead to increased rates of depression, anxiety, disordered eating and lower levels of productivity. Key ideas for use in prevention and therapy will be presented, along with evidence for their usefulness.

Professor Tracey Wade Biography

Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Tracey Wade, has worked as a clinician in the area of eating disorders for almost 30 years and her current research interests are in the aetiology, prevention and treatment of eating disorders. She was awarded the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Early Career Award on 2003, in 2015 she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, in 2016 she was made an Inaugural Honorary Fellow of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy, in 2017-18 she was the president of the Eating Disorder Research Society, and in 2018 she was appointed to the Expert Advisory Panel, Million Minds, a Federal mental health research mission. She is currently an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Eating Disorders. More recently she has developed a body of research in the area of perfectionism, co-authoring 2 books on the treatment of perfectionism. She has over 200 publications in peer reviewed journals.