TINNITUS & HYPERACUSIS THERAPY MASTERCLASS Venue: Birkbeck College, University of London Reflections on the March 2012 course Lesson plan This course covered a wide range of topics. The distribution of subjects discussed (% time spent on each topic) is shown in the pie diagram below. 3% 3% 7% 7% 11% Assessment procedures Tinnitus Research TRT CBT Counselling Skills Service Development ENT update Evidence based practice 17% 19% 33%
Feedback from participants (uncut!) The course has been an eye opener in how to combine TRT and CBT. I have learned something that will change my practice. I am glad I participated. I thoroughly enjoyed the course. I found the presentations interesting and thought provoking. I feel that I have gained the basis to develop further skills in this area. I found all the presentations useful but particularly enjoyed the interactive sessions and those involving the tapes. The course has made me more confident about dealing with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis patients. It has given me the motivation and knowledge to use TRT and CBT as a therapy for my patients and also a tool I can use in my everyday life. It was
well presented and there was good logical progression with sufficient time allocated to practicing some of the skills. The course has taught me a lot of things as well as made other topics clearer for me to understand. It is something good because the therapies presented compliment each other and seems to be easier to apply to the clinical sessions. The course has been well organised, very informative and covered most areas required. Interactive nature of sessions was good. Perhaps some of the external speakers could have been more interactive to help us keep on track. Handouts good- some were a little small side and although we have electronic backup would be helpful if all visible on paper copies. Maybe some more practical sessions of CBT in small groups whereby 2-3 observers 1 therapist 1 patient could facilitate learning. Good use of real patients appointment recordings. Thank you Hashir for a wonderful course. I learned a lot during the course. I liked your `Socratic` teaching approach. I now feel prepared to start TRT and perhaps to do some basic CBT with some patients and see how it goes. Thank you for sharing all your material with us. Combination of guest speakers and general speaker worked well. Style of counselling may not be suitable for all patients and audiologists. Further training for Audiologists would be required to take core beliefs of patients. Having a deep psychological understanding and clinical expertise improves the quality of the counselling for the patient. Course was very informative, interesting and demonstrates how alternative approaches from biomedical model can improve patients results.
I have enjoyed meeting you the value of the learning has finally rounded my thoughts when treating tinnitus patients. It had given me the confidence to tackle more difficult cases. I hope you come and lecture in NZ conference one day. I have been encouraged to read psychology books and to review TRT. This Tinnitus master course was extremely valuable and insightful. I arrived not knowing what to expect, I was nervous that I would be well below everyone else s level and wouldn t keep up or understand. However I found it not to be this way. The content of TRT was familiar but cemented into my head. Everything was making more concrete for me. It made me realise that I need to add a lot more structure to my TRT and focus more on sound therapy in the form of ear level generators. The worksheets given are extremely helpful to apply practically in my clinic. The CBT and MI was scary it takes me right out of my comfort zone. Although I worked with CBT (not with tinnitus patients) I ve learned many practical way of CBT. I ve structured the techniques of TRT so I think it was an enjoying course for me and I learned practical ways which was the thing that made me take this course. The Tinnitus was very helpful CBT and TRT tools for managing Tinnitus and Hyperacusis patients. Both TRT and CBT are useful and better not first to stick to one. I found the modules very helpful listening to patient s recordings gave an insight into the clinical setting and the real life clinical situation. The course has helped clarify treatment protocols used in our clinic to treat Tinnitus and Hyperacusis. The multi-national aspect of this course has been extremely enjoyable to experience.
Extremely inspiring course, it will defiantly influence my approach and practice towards tinnitus patients. The execution of the course is very high quality; the printout is very useful and helped to focus on the lecture instead of taking notes. Very consistent material and informative practical and practice oriented. Very useful patient presentations (audio of consultations/counselling) lots of material given out which I can use in the future as well. Congratulations very glad I could take part. Changed the way I see tinnitus and look at tinnitus patients. Certain parts I have learned I will use in my general practice as well. I found the course excellent. Although I have no experience to date. I felt it challenged me and educated me in a new model of therapy for my clients. I have no doubt that I have learned a great deal and found much to practice and develop from this. I found this course to be of great benefit. I found the lectures were easy to follow and spoke loud enough so I could hear everything they were saying. Also the presentations were in a coherent manner. I found the MI counselling path very useful. The TRT clear and well structured. The CBT was clear but much different to the TRT. But the bits in-between become confusing for me. This maybe because of my training methods. Counselling/ therapy would have been more helpful to describe each in turn and then look at application clinically. The course has challenged my current practice. I have learnt new ways to modify my practice with new techniques and the opportunity to network and share ideas, especially internationally where cultures and methods may differ. Very enjoyable!
Thought provoking, constantly making me reflect on how I interact with my patients and how I might modify and expand procedures. I found the research element good in expanding or reinforcing my understanding of tinnitus and Hyperacusis. The counselling aspects have confirmed some of the techniques I have been applying but challenged me with learning the new techniques. Lots of further reading reflection and eventually working out a way to implement these new treatment methods into my practice. Thanks especially for the questionnaire and protocols. TRT- categories of each patient to help manage them better. Being able to listen to recorded CBT sessions. I found the course very interesting and useful. However I found it quite overwhelming as many of the aspects were new to me e.g. CBT. The use of the new `audio` sessions were good at reducing the apprehension of using CBT in clinic as it shows us how it can be performed. Excellent course! I think it has been very interesting. I really needed the clinical angle on the treatment of tinnitus clients and I got what I was looking for. I do some teaching myself and I think it is amazing how good you are making people feel relaxed and comfortable. I am not going to treat tinnitus clients myself but I am going to teach others about tinnitus and the treatment of tinnitus. I will defiantly use some of the knowledge I have gained in this course. I really enjoyed the course, now I feel more confident treating patients with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis. I had no knowledge on the subject, and I think the course was very helpful giving me a lot of information to start and continue studying Tinnitus and Hyperacusis.
I have found this course very informative. It has equipped me with the necessary basic skills in treating patients with Tinnitus and Hyperacusis. Further reading in the area is indicated to cement the skills and knowledge gained in this course. I have found the diverse background of attendees a pleasure in sharing this learning experience with. It was a great course. I learnt a lot throughout the week. The recommended books were a great addition and I am very eager to read them. Throughout the course I felt very motivated and focused so I'm eager to work with my Tinnitus patients. However the TA article provided in the reading material before the course went completely over my head, but spending a couple of minutes watching the TA video during the course made everything click. Is it possible to add the videos in the pre-course materials? The overall experience was good and found very worthwhile. Sometimes the days were long just like listening. Would have liked more interaction and practical application. When listening to the audio it would have been better to have more background. If possible videos of the therapy sessions would have been good. I liked at the beginning of each presentation there was a clear outline of the presentation and what was being covered. Maybe have the class in a more open room to facilitate group discussion. Also would have been good to have WIFI facilities. I have found the course very useful. I would have preferred to be in one room and at times it was difficult for me to learn all the comments people made. However on the whole it was a positive experience. I should have mentioned the extent of my learning liss so that better preparations could have been made for the recordings that took place. I was grateful for the use of the Dictaphone. Thank you for providing this intense course. I have really enjoyed all 5 days of the course which is due to a few reasons. The content covered your teaching style,
interactive sessions, listening and learning from your patient recordings. It can be difficult to just sit and listen to a lecture so the variety used has been helpful. The Q and A sessions have also been good; I wasn t expecting so many people from other countries. Having this mixture of people allows better learning from different ideas thought and experiences. Finally I feel privileged to have attended this course and to receive the training from you. I now feel excited and look forward to implanting the things I have learnt. The variety of topics covered has been very helpful and provided us with a great new insight into the management of the Tinnitus patients. It has helped to consolidate my knowledge in the use of TRT with much more practical applications and the introduction of CBT has opened up a whole new avenue that we can integrate into our therapy programmes. I feel that I will approach each client I see in the future in a more open way, and try to gain a better understanding of the patient, and what they would more likely benefit from in a treatment programme. It has been a very worthwhile course thank you. My experience throughout this master class has been very positive. I am very content with being provided in depth with tools to manage Tinnitus patients. I appreciate having had the opportunity to learn from Hashir and from the lectures from the related fields. The knowledge and tools opened up for me. Methods of treatment that I did now have experience with clinically. I also like the presentation style, involvement of the class participants in discussions and supplementary materials provided via the drop box. This course was one of the best ever master classes attended by me. The amount of the lectures, presentations, tools etc provided during the class was above excellence. Guest lectures provided by renowned audiology experts were also informative really enjoyed the course. Looking forward to seeing patients.
It has been a very interesting, at times intensive, look at the processes of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis management. I wish I had a greater knowledge of some of the categories of the management. It is great that the course contains some really useful tools that I m sure I can take back to use in my clinics. It was also really useful networking with other participants and it would have been great to have spent more time on practical examples and learning from each other. I hope all the materials promised me in the drop down box for when I m back in work. I have particularly enjoyed and feel I have learned quite a lot about CBT and TRT and sound generators. I felt that the audio and patients in therapy was too long and it would have been better to summarise these. I also felt that some sessions wondered of the point too much where questions were concerned. I am pleased that I will be able to take a lot of information back to clinic and feel that information provided to show patients will be very useful. I also intend to invest on some of the books we have been shown. On the whole I have enjoyed my week and have met some interesting people thank you. This master class has been a great experience. At the start I was afraid the language barrier would take its toll. But it went great. I have learnt a lot. Due to the fact that we had to translate a lot we have learnt a lot. Especially the CBT is very new to me and it is very surprising how deep you can go. Many thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed the course in terms of both content and presentation. Content was very informative both evidence based and practice based experience shared. The presentations were easy to understand and excellent and relevant. A thorough review of available treatments based on evidenced based practice. The course offered a strong review for those who have worked in the field for a while, but
built on this provided me with challenging topics of CBT and counselling therapy. I think the information presented will have strong influence on my clinical practice from now on. All guest speaker presentations were highly valuable. Overall information was presented in a interesting, relevant and enjoyable way. Thank you. I really found the 5 days informative and a huge learning experience. I am slightly overwhelmed in how to put all in practice and change the way I ve been doing things. But at the same time I feel excited about changes I can make as I feel I will be able to make a difference to the majority of my patients. I have all the tools now I just need to start using it. I didn t like the sandwiches every day and that no social event was organised for all that attend the course. I came to this course with a lot of gaps in my knowledge of TRT and CBT as I have never done this before. I knew what they are about but never put these into practice. The course helped us understand the key points in treating Tinnitus patient. The course was excellent both practical and model. It was very well explained, clear thoughts and explanations. Organisation very good, hearing atmosphere excellent. Last day had sometime for practical sessions to apply what we had learnt. It was very good. I enjoyed the class. In spite of different language sometimes felt I nearly couldn t follow the class. But I tried my best and this class is composed of different background, experience and profession. It enriches my vision on Tinnitus and I want to say thank you very much.