What is Therapy & How Do We Measure It?

Earn 1 hour of continuing education by joining OT Potential after taking this course.

Course Description

The rapid rise of AI chat presenting as therapists has spurred a reaction to differentiate what AI can do versus the work of a licensed therapist.

This is causing many people to look more closely at the question:

What Is Therapy?

In today’s discussion, we’ll both look back at how therapy has been understood historically and look forward to cutting-edge research like “interpersonal neural synchrony,” which is being studied across therapy professions and perhaps paving the way for a unified definition of therapy and its biological mechanisms. Understanding therapy in a neurobiological way will also help us understand why therapy is so often measured by triangulating multiple outcome measures.

We are joined in the course by Megan Cornish, LICSW, and we hope it will inspire you to consider the remarkable power of therapeutic relationships (that we are just at the beginning of understanding.)

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OT Potential courses are presented as live webinars, then released on-demand video and audio via the OT Potential Podcast. Attendance in the live webinar will be indicated on your certificate. Learn more about how our courses help meet live webinar requirements, and OT CEU requirements overall.

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Learning Objectives

1. You will be able to identify new science that explores the neurobiological basis of what is happening during therapy delivery. 
2. You will be able to recognize how understanding the neurobiological components of therapeutic relationships may impact how we measure therapy.

Agenda

Intro (5 minutes)

1. Why do we need to have this discussion and reaffirm the definition of therapy?
2. What are bad examples of therapy definitions, and where do they lead? 
3. Why should we define therapy together (in an age of silos)?
4. What can we learn from looking at the history of how therapy has been defined
5. The recent research on Interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) has really shifted how I personally understand therapy. How is new science shaping your understanding of what therapy is? 
6. Why do current events and new research make it important to get out of our silos when describing therapy? 
7. How does thinking about what therapy is make you think about how we measure it? 
8. How would we like to see the definition of therapy expand in the future? 
9. After this conversation, how would you describe therapy to a friend?

Live Q&A (10 min)

Closing (5 min)

Supporting Research and Journal Articles

• A systematic review of hyperscanning in clinical encounters
• How do users of a mental health app conceptualise digital therapeutic alliance? A qualitative study using the framework approach
• Brain-to-brain mechanisms underlying pain empathy and social modulation of pain in the patient-clinician interaction

Target Audience/Educational Level

Our target audience is occupational therapy practitioners who are looking to learn more about therapy and how it is measured. The educational level is introductory.

Financial and Non-financial Disclosures

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

We here at OT Potential have no financial stake in this topic. 

Speakers

Megan Cornish, LICSW

Megan has a Master’s degree in social work from the University of Washington, and is a licensed clinical social worker with hands-on experience in clinical mental health. For years, Megan assumed she’d practice as a social worker until retirement.

She planned on supporting her creative, entrepreneurial drive (and financial obligations) with her writing side hustle, but ended up devoting most of her time to one-on-one clinical work.

Then… her career path changed. As a result of a cross-country move and new family obligations, Megan was forced to walk away from her social work dream job — but vowed not to walk away from her commitment to mental health.

And with the mental health industry’s radical changes, she had the chance to improve mental health outcomes on a larger scale with her unique combo of mental health and communication skills.

Over the past several years as a marketer for mental health companies, Megan has had the honor of working with some of the world’s most exciting mental health startups. She has joined the team at Therapists in Tech, a non-profit organization that helps center clinician voices in the mental health tech space, and also launched a podcast, Hot Commodity: the collision of mental health and tech. In it, Megan examines the most pressing mental health topics with clinicians, leaders, and stakeholders.

Sarah Lyon, OTR/L

Sarah’s passion is helping fellow OT practitioners translate evidence into daily practice. Sarah earned her BA in religion from St. Olaf College, then earned her master’s degree in occupational therapy from New York University in 2011.

Since then, she’s worked in numerous facilities, including a critical access hospital, an acute trauma hospital, and a state inpatient psychiatric hospital. Sarah is the founder/owner of OT Potential. Read more about OT Potential here.

This course was designed to meet your continuing education requirements

We designed the courses in the Club to meet the requirements for “online” and “independent/self-study” courses. To verify the requirements from your specific state (within the US), check out our post, OT Continuing Education Requirements. If you are outside of the United States and have questions, please contact us.

We are proud to be an AOTA Approved Provider and to meet the requirements for your NBCOT renewal.

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