CBT Essentials for Primary Care: Skills You Can Use With Patients Tomorrow

Overview

Primary care clinicians encounter mental health concerns daily, yet many feel underequipped to address them effectively. This interactive session will provide practical, evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques that can be seamlessly integrated into primary care practice. Through real patient scenarios and hands-on skill practice, you'll learn brief interventions for common presentations like anxiety, depression, and chronic pain that you can implement immediately. We'll focus on time-efficient strategies that fit within typical appointment constraints while enhancing patient outcomes.

Learning Objectives

• Apply core CBT techniques (thought records, behavioral activation, grounding exercises) during routine primary care encounters
• Demonstrate effective use of brief CBT interventions within 10-15 minute patient interactions for common mental health concerns
• Identify appropriate patients for brief CBT interventions vs those requiring mental health referral based on symptom severity and complexity