Lecture Description
Bipolar disorder presents clinicians with complex treatment challenges, including recurrent mood episodes, suicide risk, medication nonadherence, and significant psychosocial consequences. This practical, evidence-based workshop will demonstrate how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can complement pharmacotherapy to help patients better manage both mood elevation and depression. Participants will learn specific cognitive and behavioral strategies for addressing symptoms, enhancing medication adherence, managing medication-related weight gain, and identifying individualized early warning signs of relapse. The workshop will emphasize collaborative relapse prevention planning, including strategies for mobilizing social supports and intervening early when changes in mood or behavior emerge. Detailed clinical cases will bring these approaches to life and provide participants with practical strategies they can readily integrate into their work with patients with bipolar disorder.
Learning Objectives
1) Diagnose bipolar mood disorders and apply cognitive and behavioral strategies to help patients manage symptoms of mood elevation and depression.
2) Identify early warning signs of mood episodes and help patients develop individualized relapse-prevention plans that incorporate social supports and strategies for early intervention.
3) Demonstrate medication adherence through psychoeducation, cognitive and behavioral strategies, and interventions to address medication-related weight gain and other barriers to adherence.
Speaker Biography
Noreen A. Reilly-Harrington, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and Director of Psychology in Mood Disorders Neuroimaging & Translational Clinical Trials at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is an internationally recognized expert in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of bipolar disorder and has co-authored numerous scientific manuscripts and books on bipolar disorder, including "Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive Therapy Approach," "Living with Bipolar Disorder: A Guide for Individuals and Families," and "The Bipolar II Disorder Workbook: Managing Recurring Depression, Hypomania, and Anxiety." She served as Director of Training and Assessment for the Bipolar Trials Network and as Principal Investigator on NIMH studies to improve the reliability of clinical assessments. Dr. Reilly-Harrington’s research also focuses on the treatment of comorbid obesity in bipolar disorder and she currently serves as Lead of Engagement in a large multi-site PCORI study comparing ECT and Ketamine for the treatment of acute suicidal depression. Dr. Reilly-Harrington earned her undergraduate degree at University of Pennsylvania and her doctoral degree at Temple University. She trained under the direction of Dr. Aaron T. Beck at the Center for Cognitive Therapy, University of Pennsylvania and at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research. She completed both her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at MGH/Harvard Medical School and is a Founding Fellow in the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy and Honorary Faculty at the Beck Institute.