It was encouraging to read about the level of interest in psychological therapies for older people in Wales (Psychiatric Bulletin, January 2006, 30, 10–11). Older people will become more aware of psychological therapies and will request them more in the future.
The multidisciplinary team training in cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) which was devised and developed by Chris Williams is aimed at training a community mental health team in basic CBT skills, without the jargon associated traditionally with CBT. Hence, it is easily accessible to team members who have no formal training in the discipline. The system is designed to be used in part or whole by practitioners and can therefore provide a range of sessions for varied needs. Training material can be downloaded from http://www.calipso.co.uk
Having trained in Glasgow, I am now imparting these skills to my colleagues from the multidisciplinary team in north Dublin and they have been well received. It is difficult for any service to gain protected time for training. Whitfield et al (Psychiatric Bulletin, February 2006, 30, 58–60) highlight the need for supervision, the development and maintenance of CBT skills as well as for the training and supervision of others. I suggest that the challenge in disseminating these skills is to locate and establish local centres of expertise which would provide supervision and ongoing training. This might prove particularly difficult in areas where no such therapies have previously been available.
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