APT Microlearning Modules.
APT Microlearning Modules deliver focused, evidence-based insights in around 20 minutes or so. Designed for busy professionals, they’re perfect for consolidating key skills or learning something new — even on a lunch break.
APT’s gold-standard content in bite-sized chunks.
Engaging for busy professionals to listen to.
Clear, focused CPD in under 25 minutes.
Includes printable Summary and Client resources where appropriate.
Listen at your desk, on a walk, or between sessions.
Assessment: how to ask the right questions.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this Assessment Module, you'll learn or re-learn how to achieve one of the fundamental starting points of effective therapy: how to conduct consistent, subjective assessment of the key factors affecting each patient. This is an essential skill in any therapeutic endeavour and is too often 'glossed over' in the often unrealistic hope that even the most distressed patients will easily tell us just what is the matter. In reality, a skilled assessment provides hope for both the patient and for us.
Avoiding the fatal Second Arrow: Acceptance
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this module from the APT, we'll be talking about how to neutralize the extremely destructive 'second arrow,' through a principle of mindfulness: acceptance. The 'second arrow' refers to the spiral that so often occurs when for instance a person becomes depressed and then becomes frustrated that they are depressed, which makes them more distressed, which makes them more depressed and frustrated, and so on downwards. An exactly parallel effect occurs with anxiety, irritability, psychotic conditions and more.
Case Formulation: making sense of the information you obtain.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this Case Formulation Module from the APT, you'll learn how to appraise the 6 P's of case formulation: the patient's problem, pre-disposing factors, precipitating factors, perpetuating factors, positive and protective factors and of course, the plan! It enables us to form a powerful strategy to organize the information we obtain in the assessment so we can help the patient as quickly and effectively as possible. And without it, we can be very much 'stumbling in the dark.'
Engaging Your Patients: if you don’t do this then everything else is wasted time.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
This course will take you through the most critical elements of engaging your patients. Even with the best tools and training in the world, if we can't properly connect with and engage our patients, we won't be able to help them. All therapists mean to engage with their patients but many have never really been taught how to do it, as though it is achieved simply through an act of will on the part of the therapist. In fact there are clear principled strategies for achieving it, and this is what you learn here.
Evidence-Based Practice .. and Practice-Based Evidence.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this distance learning module from APT, you'll learn about evidence-based practice, practice, based evidence, and how to use them to help monitor and track the progress your patients make. We are rightly encouraged to base our practice on established evidence, and yet there isn't a protocol for every condition that every patient arrives with, so we lean heavily on 'practice-based evidence' - obtaining evidence from our practice and the patient we are working with. It is crucially important to do because without it we may be heading in the wrong direction - doing the patient more harm than good - but with it we are both encouraged and empowered.
Functional Analysis: most ‘problems’ serve a purpose, and revealing that purpose can be the key to success.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this module from the APT, we talk about the functions our patients' problems and behavior serve for them, what fallacies exist around for example 'attention-seeking behavior', and what to do once we have uncovered the functions of the behavior. We'll look at hunches and ABC Analysis, depression, behavior that has 'built-in' functionality, and the importance of verifying that there aren't underlying physical causes. Functional Analysis is a concept that has long been recognized by those working with 'challenging behavior' but in fact it relevance is much wider than that.
Helping the Patient Apply What's Covered In-Session: ‘Agreeing homework’ is just the start.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this distance learning module from the APT, you'll learn strategies to help your patients consistently and effectively apply what is addressed during therapy sessions. There are 148 hours in a week and therapy maybe takes up just one of those, so what patients do in the remaining 147 is crucial, and we need to have strategies for addressing exactly that.
Helping the Patient to Construct a Plan to Achieve their Goals.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this module, we talk about how to create a motivating vision for the patient to work towards, and the steps they will take to achieve it. 'Planning' is surely one of the most misunderstood concepts in therapy: patient may say they 'plan to give up drinking' or 'plan to conquer their depression' both of which may be relevant, but they are not plans, the are simply hopes or aspirations. Planning is a frequently-enjoyable and frequently-rewarding activity tailored to achieve such hopes and aspirations, and it is this we address in this module.
How to Structure a Therapy Session: one of the strongest pillars of quality control in therapy.
Audio, PDF and practice suggestion totalling 1 hour CPD.
In this distance learning module from the APT, we'll be looking at the different elements you should include in every therapy session. This allows you to provide the same quality of service to all of your patients, every time they see you and creates a structure they can use and rely on. Providing the same quality late on a Thursday afternoon as you do early on a Tuesday morning can be demanding, and having a solid structure for the therapy session is one of the strongest pillars we have in achieving this.
