Improving Quality of Life

Improving Quality of Life

Presented By: Stephanie H. Felgoise, Ph.D., ABPP

PCOM 4170 City Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19131

Evans Hall 334

Friday, December 14, 2018

Time: 9am to 12pm

Registration at 8:30am

Link to Register

3.0CE

Act 48

Psychology and counseling had traditionally been problem-focused and emphasized decreasing pathology, maladaptive behaviors, and relief of stress and distress. However, the Positive Psychology movement has recalibrated the evaluation of individuals needs and brought about a more balanced conceptualization of how to help individuals maximize their satisfaction with life, while still aiming to decrease distress and alleviate suffering and problems. This movement has coincided with the evolution of job coaches, life coaches, mind-body interventions, and other positively-focused interventions to improve life satisfaction and happiness. Individuals need experts who are trained in both life enhancement and issues typically addressed by psychologists and other mental health professionals.

QOL is often a goal of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. Improving QOL has become an increasingly important focus of interprofessional care and behavioral medicine interventions for medical populations. This workshop is designed to teach individuals how to assess the quality of life; how to help clients or patients identify areas of QOL that could be improved to enhance their resilience and prosocial areas of life to help buffer stressors and improve overall functioning; and how to use existing therapeutic skills to accomplish these goals.

This workshop will address the use of cognitive- and behaviorally-based therapies to achieve these goals and will introduce the more recently formulated QOL Therapy (Frisch, 2013). This presentation will incorporate the presenters more than 20 years of experience in focusing on QOL in clinical practice and research with varied populations, such as persons presenting for outpatient psychotherapy and couples therapy, and in- and outpatient medical populations and/or caregivers of those with cardiac conditions, cancer, ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease), Multiple Sclerosis, and other complex life circumstances

Objectives:
1) Operationally define QOL.
2) Explain or be able to conduct a QOL assessment via interview and standardized measures.
3) Conceptualize QOL as targeted factors for goal-setting in therapy.
4) Be able to describe and apply therapeutic techniques and goals to QOL assessment.
5) Identify and explain 16 areas of QOL, and therapeutic ways to improve areas of QOL, as indicated.

Dr. Stephanie Felgoise is Professor & Chair of the Department of Clinical Psychology, and Director of the PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and board certified in Clinical Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and has more than 20 years of experience in working with individuals and couples to improve quality of life, coping, and adjustment to psychosocial stressors, major life events and medical illnesses. Her research has focused on quality of life, problem-solving skills, coping, and adjustment in persons with ALS and their caregivers; and children and adults with Long QT Syndrome (cardiac rhythm disorder), and their parental caregivers’; and recently adults undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage kidney disease. She has published numerous books and articles on these topics and has coauthored the ALS-Specific Quality of Life measure, the ALS-Specific QOL-Revised, and the ALS-Specific QOL-SF (Short Form). She is a member of ABCT, APA, Society of Behavioral Medicine, and NCSPP. She is a consulting editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, and Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Psychology.