13th Annual Conference

May 4-6, 2023

Dalhousie University - Halifax, N.S

Conference Chair(s):
Jacquie Cohen and Alissa Pencer

2023 Conference Hosted in Kjipuktuk (Halifax) and Online

The CACBT’s 2023 conference, held May 4-6, marked its 13th annual conference and its first in a hybrid format. The conference had its best attendance ever, at 397 delegates, approximately half of who attended in person.

There was great enthusiasm for the theme, Toward Culturally Responsive CBT, and a distinctive sense that delegates were coming together because of a shared commitment to better serve racialized and other marginalized clients and communities. The conference speakers epitomized high-quality CBT, yet also made clear the need for adaptation, cultural responsiveness, and humility.

Dr. Christine Padesky provided a master class in Engaging Clients in Collaborative Case Conceptualization, and Dr. Philippe Shnaider facilitated a workshop entitled Improving Your Socratic Dialogue Skills in the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Both made excellent use of clinical demonstrations, beautifully modelling what Dr. Kelly Koerner refers to as location perspective. They communicated a genuine curiosity, a desire to truly understand the client, and then conveyed “of course you are [this place] given your [social context/experiences]. It makes perfect sense. Anyone in your [location] would feel the same way.” Their compassion, warmth, and unconditional positive regard was palpable and infectious.

Dr. Sarah Victor’s call to destigmatize mental health problems among those in our field (From a Culture of Silence Toward a Culture of Inclusion: Destigmatizing Mental Illness Among Mental Health Providers, Researchers, and Trainees) – in part by sharing our lived experiences – and Dr. Judith Beck’s discussion of the role of values work in cognitive therapy (Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy) set the stage for the other, more specific, conference topics. They laid the foundation for other speakers to bring warmth, genuineness, curiosity, and openness to learning about the location perspectives of specific racialized and/or otherwise marginalized groups.

Each of Ms. Charity Fleming (Introducing Mikwendaagwad “It is Remembered” Sacred Circle CBT), Drs. Jude Mary Cénat and Angela Haeny (From a Colourblind Approach to Antiracist CBT), Dr. Nigel Lou (The Dual Pandemic of COVID and Racism: Asian Canadian Experiences), Dr. Ghayda Hassan (Identity, Belonging, and Mental Health of Children and Adolescents from Ethnic/Religious Minorities), and Dr. Taylor Hatchard (Healing Minority Stress Among the 2SLGBTIAQ+ Community Through CBT) brought their personal histories, lived experiences, and wisdom into their presentations, individualizing and exemplifying how colonial laws, customs, and values have shaped and continue to affect our work in mental health – and how we can bring acknowledgement of systemic and structural discrimination, humility, and responsivity into our clinical practice.

Dr. Marjory Phillips embodied these same values in her skills training, Adapting CBT for Children and Youth with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. And finally, in their research symposium, Drs. Sherry Stewart, Hanie Edalati, Christopher Mushquash, Laura Lambe, and Patricia Conrod discussed the importance of responsivity to personality traits in adapting PreVenture, an intervention for youth substance misuse, to varying populations.

CACBT-ACTCC was pleased to congratulate:

Dr. David. A Clark
Sorina Andrei (McMaster University) - Is targeting intolerance of uncertainty necessary in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder? Comparing two group CBT protocols.
Ryan Yuhi Kirenga (University of Ottawa) - Effets de la colère et de la culpabilité liées à un traumatisme sur les résultats d'une version flexible de la thérapie cognitivo-comportementale centrée sur le traumatisme (TCC-T).
Nesrine Mesli (McGill University) - Is self-ambivalence associated with both obsessive-compulsive symptoms and eating pathology?

Shreya Jagtap (University of Toronto) - Culturally adapted cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CACBTP): A review of key features of cultural adaptation

Arij Alarachi (McGill University) - two posters, Clinical and demographic characteristics of racialized and non-racialized treatment-seeking adults with clinical anxiety, and Understanding clients who prematurely discontinue treatment: Clinical and demographic characteristics of CBT non-completers with anxiety and related disorders

Anna Froude (McMaster University) - The Prevalence of cannabis use disorder in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A clinical epidemiological meta-analysis.

Finally, the CACBT’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held virtually on May 19, two weeks following the conference. Approximately 50 delegates attended as the Board members provided updates on key CACBT initiatives and appointed Dr. David Dozois as the inaugural CACBT representative to the World Confederation of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies.

However, the Board decided to do something new with this year’s AGM and interspersed the Board updates with a research report and Fellow’s address. The research report, provided by Ryan Ferguson and Dr. Andrea Ashbaugh, provided an informative overview of CBT training across mental health disciplines in Canada. Of particular relevance to CACBT, the report spoke to the need to recruit across mental health disciplines to support training needs.

Finally, ne’multes, thank you, to all the conference volunteers, Conference Committee, and Board members who made the conference and AGM such a success. Special thanks are due to the following people: Dalainey Drakes; Diana Dunnell; Jenaé Goffi; Noah Lazar; Irena Milosevic; Catherine Ouellet-Courtois; Alissa Pencer; Christine Purdon; and Karen Rowa.

Jacquie Cohen, PhD, RPsych

Past-President, CACBT

Jacquie Cohen lives and works in the Sipekne’katik district of Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq People. The territory is covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship, which the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy Peoples signed with the British Crown in the 1700s. The Treaties did not deal with the surrender of lands.