Webinar Description:

This webinar equips mental health professionals caring for “long haulers” with the necessary biopsychosocial perspective to advocate for and support them as they cope with an invisible illness still too commonly overlooked by primary care physicians. First, participants will develop an in depth understanding of long COVID as a medical condition through an exploration of topics such as its diagnostic criteria, symptoms, potential causal factors, and current model of care. Next, participants will examine the psychosocial factors they must understand to be able to ethically provide behavioral health support to long haulers (e.g., treatment barriers, proposed interventions). Participants will also become conversant in special considerations they should be mindful of when treating long haulers to include matters of disability and cultural factors. Finally, the workshop concludes with a group exercise in which participants will role play addressing treatment resistance given the propensity of many long haulers to resist the suggestion of pursuing mental health treatment. This role play allows participants to synthesize what they have learned throughout the workshop to address such therapy resistance.

Webinar Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to summarize key clinical aspects of long COVID to include symptoms, hypothesized causal factors, and barriers to timely medical treatment. 

2. Participants will demonstrate increased knowledge of behavioral health (e.g., psychiatric and neuropsychiatric features, interventions) and cultural diversity considerations. 

3. Participants will be able to demonstrate clinical capability to address a client’s resistance to behavioral health treatment for long COVID.