Executive Function and Mental Health

Executive function (EF) processes are essential for successfully navigating nearly all our daily activities, allowing us to regulate and direct our behaviour toward goals, break out of habits, make decisions and evaluate risks, plan for the future, prioritize and sequence our actions, and cope with novel situations. EF deficits are present in a wide range of mental health disorders, contributing to deficits in everyday activities, academic/occupational and social functioning. In this presentation, you will learn about EF processes and how they are important for daily life, how and why EF deficits are associated with mental health disorders, and best practices for assessing EF. We will then discuss the latest evidence on interventions for EF deficits, considering limitation of EF training approaches and promising approaches based on using compensatory strategies to improve functioning in individuals with impaired EF.

Objectives

At the end of this seminar, participants will be able to:

• Describe different types of executive function processes and how they are important in daily life.
• Explain how executive function impairments are related to different types of mental health disorders.
• Describe the pros and cons of different methods of evaluating executive function.
• Identify the efficacy of executive function training interventions.
• Identify approaches to improving daily life functioning in individuals with executive function impairments.

Content

• What is executive function (EF) and why is it important?
• Components of EF
• EF in everyday life
• EF impairments associated with mental health disorders.
• Evidence for transdiagnostic EF impairments
• Models for understanding EF impairments in psychopathology.
• Assessing EF
• Tasks vs. questionnaires
• Considering validity and reliability
• Available options for clinical use
• Treatment implications
• Evidence for and against efficacy of EF training
• Promising compensatory approaches
• Thinking about the EF demands of your treatment approaches.

For Whom

Psychologists Social Workers Counsellors Therapists Psychiatrists Nurses

Training Methodology

The training methodology combines lectures, discussions, group exercises and illustrations. Participants will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge of the topics. The emphasis is on the practical application of the topics and as a result participant will go back to the workplace with both the ability and the confidence to apply the techniques learned to their duties.