Mood Disorders Course Online: Psychological Approaches

Psychiatry. Encouraging a healthier community.

Join this self-paced interactive online course to learn how to treat mood disorders using psychological approaches and effectively deal with related issues to mood disorders.

Aims

This course will discuss cognitive behaviour therapy, describing the theoretical underpinnings of cognitive therapy and behaviour therapy for depression. Practical cognitive and behavioural methods will be presented incorporating a range of clinical examples to illustrate the techniques. You will learn about internet-based treatments for depression and their effectiveness. The way depression overlaps with and differs from anxiety disorders and prolonged grief disorder in terms of symptoms and treatment will be discussed. You will also learn about the effect of lifestyle factors such as diet and smoking on mood disorders as well as the impact of culture on the expression and treatment of depression.

This course accepts enrolments throughout the year and does not have any prerequisite requirements.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• describe the cognitive model and behavioural model of depression and apply treatment techniques derived from these models
• discuss the pros and cons of internet-based treatments for depression and its effectiveness
• differentiate depression from anxiety disorders and prolonged grief disorder with regards to symptoms and treatment
• develop a systematic view on expression and treatment of mood disorders with considerations of the impact of diet and smoking and sociocultural factors.

Content

This course covers the following topics:

• Cognitive theory for depression
• Cognitive therapy for depression
• Behavioural experiments
• Behavioural therapy for depression
• Internet Interventions for mood disorders and their comorbidities
• Prolonged grief disorder
• Lifestyle issues and the aetiology of mood disorders
• Anxiety and depression
• Mood disorders across cultures

CPD Accreditation

• Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP): 40 Category 1 points

Delivery style

Delivered in an e-learning system with the following components:

• pre-course test
• social chat forum where you can introduce yourself to the class and organise local meet-up groups
• Q & A forum where you can ask questions and get feedback from the tutor and other participants
• multimedia modules with audio-visual lectures and interactive quizzes
• lecture notes download
• lecture audios download
• assessment task
• Statement of Completion download.

You will have 90 days to complete the course at your own pace. It takes approximately 9 hours to complete it. Within the enrolment period, access to the e-learning system is available anytime and anywhere in the world as long as you have a reliable and high-speed internet connection.

The lecture audios were recorded in a professional studio and are of high quality. You can download them to your mobile devices and continue to listen to the course while travelling.

Technical support and course advice

For technical support and specific advice about this course, please contact the course coordinator Richard He here.

Ackowledgement

We acknowledge Professor Philip Boyce, Professor Richard Bryant, Professor David Castle, Dr Juliette Drobny, Associate Professor Anthony Harris, Associate Professor Felice Jacka, Associate Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin, Associate Professor Ross Menzies and Associate Professor Chee Ng for their contributions to the development of this online course.