ISPS-NZ, 6th MAKING SENSE OF PSYCHOSIS Conference – ‘The Power of Relationships’

The 6th Making Sense of Psychosis Conference was held at St John’s Centre in Wellington this year (Feb 23rd-25th, 2009) and attracted a number of people keen to hear not only form our distinguished overseas guest Richard Bentall but also eager to see what is happening at a national level. The theme of the conference was the power of relationships and participants were exposed to a diverse range of presentations including using yoga practice with people experiencing psychosis to working collaboratively to make a crisis into an opportunity to build resilience.

Richard Bentall   opened the conference with ‘The evolution of psychological Therapies for Psychosis: the power of relationships’ which set the flavour for the day and participants enjoyed a collection of thought provoking and inspiring presentation. Half of the presentations were from service users which gave a different perspective on clinical approaches and provided the necessary balance to ensure that service delivery is working to best able to meet the needs of clients. The adolescent and youth services were represented by the team from Auckland who presented on their work with voice hearing experiences with hospitalised young people. It was also pleasing to see two psychiatrists presenting their way of developing skills with their clinical team to enhance practice when working with young people who are acutely psychotic. Participants were inspired and deeply moved by the presentation from the CCDHB’s Maori Services and the exploring of a cultural explanation for peoples distress. The feedback from those attending was overwhelmingly positive and many left invigorated and more determined to continue to embrace the psychological approach in their work. The committee would like to thank all those who contributed to make this a successful conference and special thanks to all those people behind the scenes.

Power Point Presentations

Reflective practice for psychiatrists working with people with acute psychosis

Hearing Voices Group for Hospitalized Young People