Lara Dobrkovic, Serbia
As graduate medical doctor and attendee of third year of CBT/ REBT training, I am mainly focused on broader CBT interventions and working with clients primarily with anxious and depressive symptoms. My main area of psychotherapeutic work is in individual sessions and clients, as well as training groups on selected topics, and experience share within peer groups and professional conferences and gatherings.
Herewith I would like to give my warm thanks and appreciation for being part of ACBS virtual conference of 2021. Topics that were covered in the conference were very relevant and useful for broader CBT therapists. In my county I attend CBT and REBT psychotherapy trainings and I am part of broader CBT community. My main activities after that conference were focused on sharing knowledge, perspectives, and insights with my peers from the same training program I am attending to. Also, during national psychotherapy congress, that was held in late 2021, I was able to discuss in small groups topics of interested from third wave of CBT and direct co-participants into the area of further investigation about ACBS areas of work and staying tuned for future possibilities and attendance of ACBS conferences. Areas that was broadly shared and discussed within our professional circles were Acceptance and Commitment (ACT) therapy in practice, and it’s supreme position in defining and leveraging on client values. I had facilitated experience group with peers where we discussed values from REBT, broader CBT perspective and ACT perspective.
In addition to sharing verbally impressions and knowledge obtained from the conference with my peers, and facilitating experience sharing sessions, I also have embedded ACT and values into training material that I use for group workshops open for non-professional attendance. Clients are responding to values concept taken from ACT quite well and applying my modest knowledge from ACT and third wave has proven to be very useful and likable by my clients. This experience of attending ACBS virtual conference of 2021 has broaden my CBT perspective as well, and intend to attend further third wave conferences and also look up for some formal training in ACT in future.
Topics that were focus for my further practice and sharing my lessons learnt with my peers were Mindfulness based interventions and Compassionate focus therapy interventions. Both were present to my peers in context of primarily anxious and depressed clients, but were also considered in wider spectrum as well. Mindfulness is growing in popularity in my country, within both professional and non-professional circles. And Compassionate focus therapy and its interventions are very useful for clients who had some childhood trauma and have suffered from poor self-image. Through my attendance of the conference I really felt the power of compassion and I was enabled to carry this knowledge, but even more importantly, this emotional and motivational insight forward. My experiencing it first hand myself, I was better equipped to take it further, share with my peers, attendance of the training and my clients.
ACBS conference was great experience for me and I am very thankful for the opportunity to attend it.