Training Description
This 1.5-hour presentation offers a novel approach to the assessment, measurement, and guidance of treatment engagement for a population of Severely Mentally Ill (SMI) patients. Based on the economic “Theory of Constraints” model, the current model seeks to maximize treatment engagement by limiting the impact of behavioral constraints (i.e., any behavior that prevents treatment engagement). Under the current model, effort is conceptualized to be any behavior that overcomes a constraint and something that is internally driven. In this way, our understanding of behavioral change within individuals who do not, or cannot, engage in treatment, becomes fundamentally different as the focus of treatment is placed on effort rather than outcome.
Trainer Biography
Dr. Herschel (Hank) Ebner is a licensed psychologist who works with patients who have been civilly committed after being found Not Guilty By Reason of Mental Disease or Defect (NGRI; Wisconsin State Statute 971). Dr. Ebner earned his Doctorate of Psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2017 where he received a scholarship in Neuropsychology. Prior to his work with patients found NGRI, Dr. Ebner completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Forensic Psychology through Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center (SRSTC) and Mendota Mental Health Institute (MMHI)’s combined training program, where he worked with populations of court-ordered and legally-based juvenile and adult psychiatric consumers, completed pretrial Competency to Stand Trial evaluations, evaluations of violence risk and sexual dangerousness, and treatment of individuals deemed incompetent to competent by the court system.
Dr. Ebner’s interests in prediction, and factors that influence motivation, are longstanding, and highlighted by his time at the University of Iowa where he also earned degrees in Economics and Psychology.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to…
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- Discuss the utility of “effort” as a measure of behavioral change.
- Identify treatment barriers as constraints preventing a given outcome.
- Identify treatment outcomes as a function of effort.
- Identify methodology used to develop SRSTC’s treatment engagement token economy.