Annual Yellowbrick Conference

RISK & REWARD; Themes of Safety in Treatment

6 CEU Credits

Attend in Person or Virtually

$75
(Light Breakfast & Lunch provided)

Yellowbrick Consultation and Treatment Center
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
3rd Floor Auditorium
Evanston, IL 60201
Parking is available in One Rotary Center; enter on Grove.

**Note there will be a limited number of In-Person seats so be sure to register early.**
Hotel Block Rates are available at The Graduate Evanston on Wednesday, Sept. 14th, and Thursday, Sept. 15th

$25
Attend from anywhere via Zoom

Conference Description:

RISK & REWARD; Themes of Safety in Treatment
Yellowbrick’s Annual Conference 2022, “Risk & Reward: Themes of Safety in Treatment,” will bring together thought leaders from the country’s leading psychiatric hospitals and treatment centers. The conference will explore themes related to safety, including how we can attain a more comprehensive treatment experience and therefore better outcomes for patients.

Presenters:

Dr. Ray Kotwicki; Chief Medical Officer
Skyland Trail

How to Dress Professionally (From the Waist Up): Lessons in safety learned from a global pandemic

Summary: Leveraging a therapeutic milieu in residential treatment programs is believed to be an essential aspect of patients’ recoveries.  This assumption was challenged during the covid pandemic when many residential, partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs pivoted to virtual care during which structured in vivo activities, extemporaneous peer support, and consistent in-person therapist skills coaching were impossible.  A formal research project to assess which patients were most impacted through having to engage in virtual rather than in-person psychosocial rehabilitation services and psychotherapies was conducted at Skyland Trail, a private, non-profit residential, PHP, and IOP treatment program located in Atlanta, Georgia.  Data from the study will be presented and extrapolated to help determine which patients might safely and effectively be treated virtually – and which patients really do require in-person treatment – in years ahead.

Objectives:

1. 1. Describe the components of effective, residential psychosocial rehabilitation programs and the power of the therapeutic treatment milieu.
   2. Cite potential unsafe or challenging sequelae of using virtual platforms for individual and group psychotherapies.
   3. Consider outcome data from a pilot study that differentiates which patients benefitted most from virtual treatment and which patients struggled to engage and benefit from virtual care in residential, PHP, and IOP programming at Skyland Trail.  Extrapolate these data to your own programming and clinical practices as virtual mental health care become more accepted.

Dr. David Baron – Medical Director
Yellowbrick

Becoming a ‘Right Brain Whisperer’: How Understanding and Interpreting Enactment can Promote Safety in Psychotherapy

Summary: Working in an intensive treatment setting with young adults who have serious dysregulation of mood, sense of self, and behavior can be a risky business.  “Contained” or locked treatment facilities that rely significantly on externally imposed rules and structure—such as locked doors—can sometimes fail to accomplish more than driving the patient’s troubles underground through deception, false compliance, and “waiting out” the confinement.  Skills-based therapies can have a significant impact on some patients and some behaviors but often fail to show their effects when the patient has had significant trauma leading to dissociated self-states, i.e., a disconnection either from any awareness of what drives their problematic behaviors or if they are aware cognitively, no emotional connection to this awareness.

The use of enactment theory (Schore, Ginot, others) as a basis for psychotherapeutic intervention and interpretation involves the therapist’s ongoing efforts toward awareness of shared, “right-brain-communicated” nonverbal affective experiences, that form a representation of the patient’s implicit early life trauma-associated affects.  Offering an understanding of these experiences as an interpretation in the moment can powerfully impact the patient’s understanding thus creating an opportunity for safer attachment, which is crucial to any change in treatment (Winnicott).

This talk will attempt to describe and elucidate the above technique as applied at Yellowbrick, an intensive multi-modal and multidisciplinary treatment program for Emerging Adults, and how this approach can achieve a co-created sense of safety in an otherwise potentially terrifying context of risk.

Objectives:

1. Learn about nonverbal communication between the emotional/right brain experience of the patient and that of the therapist
2. Learn to recognize this process as and when it happens
3. Understand the technique of enactment interpretation as a therapeutic tool, and how it expands the range of emotional safety within the therapeutic relationship.

Dr. Andrew Gerber – CEO
Silver Hill Hospital

Treating Complex Patients in a 21st Century Psychiatric Continuum of Care

Summary: In the last few decades, pressure from managed care has driven the closure of psychiatric inpatient beds, reduced payment for residential treatment, and fragmented care into brief inpatient stabilization followed by inadequate outpatient services. Both levels of care frequently are missing expertly-delivered evidence-based psychotherapy, which research shows are

the best treatment for patients with complex disorders. We believe that this is a major cause of a failing safety net for those with complex and comorbid psychiatric disorders (including addiction) and related to the rise in suicide rates and other negative societal and public health outcomes. One of the methods used by insurance companies, with the support of regulatory bodies, is to hijack anxiety about patient safety to create a false dichotomy between those who require a very restrictive and expensive inpatient level of care and patients who are well enough for outpatient services. The clinical reality, however, is that patient risk, particularly in complex patients with lifelong vulnerabilities, lies along a continuum best served by a range of levels of care. These levels must be clearly defined and matched to the patients’ needs. In this presentation, we will discuss the nature of this continuum from the clinical side as well as from the care provision side. Level of Care placement tools such as the LOCUS, CALOCUS, and ASAM criteria will be discussed, and their applicability to care explored.

Objectives:

1. Attendees will learn how current managed care and regulatory pressures have hijacked concerns about safety to create a fragmented psychiatric treatment system for complex patients and created a situation in which patients are not receiving the services they need.
2. Attendees will understand how a complete continuum of care (inpatient, residential, and intensive outpatient) can match the appropriate services to the level of patient difficulties.
3. Attendees will be able to use the LOCUS, CALOCUS, and ASAM criteria to evaluate patients and recommend the appropriate level of care.

Dr. Daryl Shorter Medical Director, Addiction Services
Menninger

Identifying Health Disparities and Barriers to Care among Persons Living with Substance Use Disorders

Summary: Health disparities have been a hot topic among clinicians in academic centers and community settings. Despite the conversation surrounding these challenges, diagnosis and management of substance use disorders among diverse populations remains extremely challenging.

Objectives:

1. Identify specific health disparities impacting diverse communities in the diagnosis of substance use disorders
2. Understand the sociocultural factors contributing to psychological stress among diverse groups
3. Recognize and address barriers in clinical practice of addictions treatment

Schedule:

• 8:15-9:00 – Registration

• 9:00 –11:45 – Welcome & Presentations

• 11:45-12:30 – Lunch

• 12:30-3:00 – Presentations

• 3:00-3:15pm – Break

3:15- 4:15 – Speakers Panel

Register Now:

$75
(Light Breakfast & Lunch provided)

Yellowbrick Consultation and Treatment Center
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
3rd Floor Auditorium
Evanston, IL 60201
Parking is available in One Rotary Center; enter on Grove.

**Note there will be a limited number of In-Person seats so be sure to register early.**
Hotel Block Rates are available at The Graduate Evanston on Wednesday, Sept. 14th, and Thursday, Sept. 15th

$25
Attend from anywhere via Zoom

Questions:

Call Tracy Ashworth 847-869-1500 ext. 207