Türkiye Dissemination Activities 2022

Enver Denizhan Ramakan, Türkiye

Could you please tell us a little about you and your background?
Hi, I’m Denizhan Ramakan from Türkiye. I’m working as a resident in psychiatry department of a rooted mental health hospital and I am a member of ACBS Türkiye. 

How did you become interested in CBS?
I first met with CBS when I started my residency education, thanks to Fatih YAVUZ and after him Sevinç ULUSOY who are two of the founders of ACBS Türkiye. After that I’ve got into CBS work day by day. I took ACT course from ACBS Türkiye. I’ve been a member of the chapter and got part in the CBS family. I’ve been welcomed with warmth and inclusiveness and I saw the same warmth and inclusiveness from the CBS society around the world. I’d been choosen for the secretaria duty of ACBS Türkiye. I took part in congress arrangement within ACBS Türkiye. As ACBS Türkiye we made three congresses.

Could you tell us about your research and application interests?
I usually use ACT in my practice with or without pharmacotherapy. I find lots of chance to practice with both inpatients and outpatients with varieties of troubles in their lives. I have chance to see and manage patients with severe mental disorders like schizophrenia and I experience that ACT interventions really help people with psychotic symptoms. Our hospital also has an alcohol and substance dependence center and we’re currently doing a research with people who suffers from alcohol and substance use disorders. We're planning to arrange intervention for these patients. We have an affective disorders center. We've initiated a study which is an ACT group therapy for people with bipolar disorder. We’ve experienced two groups so far and we’re going to experience more in the coming days. World Con helped me develop my therapeutic skills and so contributed this process. This development is not just by new therapeutic interventions that I learned, also by enhancing my therapeutic relationship and understanding clients. 

What did you take back from your experience that has been helpful to you?
I am in contact with psychiatry specialists, residents, clinical psychologists, social workers and psychiatry nurses. When I met them, I see that they didn’t know what CBS, RFT and ACT are or they knew very few of ACT. Introducing them CBS and seeing them thinking about it is priceless. After World Con, I had found chance to transfer my take outs to them and introduce them our world wide community. I take part of the education of other residents and medical students. We're doing research in the context of CBS with some of them. We're doing reading groups about CBS papers. I’m more into RFT. We’ve initiated a working group named Language and Behaviour Research Working Group within ACBS Türkiye. In this group, we’re deepening our knowledge about RFT and planning to do some research in this field. RFT sessions in the conference updated me and encouraged to initiate researches. We have some ideas that we are preparing to bring to life.

Do you have anything else that you would like to share with the community?
ACBS made communication easier to us and helped me to see the openness to share. Thanks to our community for this opportunity that helped me to connect people who makes great valued works, to update myself and develop my therapeutic skills and my therapist stance; encouraged me to transform my effort to scientific work. I think that’s important to contribute and develop together.