The American Psychosomatic Society

Pre-Conference Workshops:

Full-day Workshop
Neuroscientific methods and their application to research in psychosomatic medicine (Ralph Adolphs, Hugo Critchley, Wayne Drevets)
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
8:00 am - 5:00 pm

A pre-conference workshop that will introduce the audience to neuroscientific methods and their application to research in psychosomatic medicine. Three world-class neuroscientists will participate. Each 90 minute slot will be equally divided between formal presentation and Q&A. The focus is on helping psychosomatic researchers, who are not neuroscientists, to learn about some exciting new and relevant findings, and the methods used to obtain them. The advantages and disadvantages of each method will be discussed.

7:30 - 8:00 am Continental Breakfast

8:00 – 9:30 am Dr. Ralph Adolphs, Cal Tech, Pasadena, CA (lesions, electrophysiological recordings; social neuroscience)

9:30 - 10:00 am Break

10:00-11:30 am Dr. Hugo Critchley, Institute of Neurology, London, U.K. (fMRI, autonomic measurements; emotion and autonomic regulation)

11:30 am – 12:30pm Lunch on your own

12:30 - 2:00 pm Dr. Wayne Drevets, NIMH, Bethesda, MD (PET for functional and neurochemical measurements; neurobiology of depression)

2:00 - 2:10 pm Break

2:10 - 5:00 pm Open Discussion

Career Development Workshop
Chair: Tené T. Lewis
Panelists include: Alan Christensen, William Gerin, Jane Leserman, Gregory Miller, Paul Mills, and Susan Everson-Rose
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

This workshop will focus on aspects of early career development and is geared towards advanced graduate students, post-doctoral fellow and junior faculty in departments of psychology and psychiatry. We plan to focus on the “Nuts and Bolts” of building a career in Behavioral Medicine. Established scholars in Behavioral Medicine will talk about: 1) Developing a program of research; 2) Getting the training you need (immunology, cardiology, oncology, etc...); 3) Establishing collaborative relationships across disciplines and 4) Obtaining funding for Behavioral Medicine Research. Faculty will present their own experiences and invite questions and discussion from workshop attendees. During this discussion we will also present issues related to career development in traditional Departments of Psychology vs. Departments of Psychiatry/Medical Schools.

Statistics Workshop
Multilevel models for the analysis of repeated measures data: Application to behavioral, psychosocial and physiological data
Joseph E. Schwartz PhD, SUNY - Stony Brook (Psychiatry)
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

The collection of repeated measures data is common to many study designs used by psychosomatic medicine researchers. For clinical trials in which a few critical assessments are made (e.g., pre-treatment, post-treatment, and one or more follow-ups), traditional repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) and/or MANOVA are commonly used to test for treatment effects. RM-ANOVA and MANOVA are special cases of multilevel models. A common problem with traditional RM-ANOVA and MANOVA is that those subjects who are missing any assessment(s) are excluded from the analysis, thereby completely ignoring the data that these subjects did provide. Multilevel models can be used to perform the same type of analysis on all available assessments because they can readily handle unequal numbers of observations (assessments) per subject. This workshop will demonstrate the application of multilevel models to the analysis of clinical trial data.

Laboratory stress reactivity studies are similar to clinical trials in that physiologic, and sometimes psychological, data are typically collected during a baseline period (pre-stress), during an experimental stressor, and during a recovery period, after the termination of the stressor. In most analyses, the data from such studies are aggregated (averaged) within each period and change scores and/or residualized change scores are analyzed. This workshop will illustrate how multilevel models can be useful for analyzing such data.

The collection of ambulatory data (e.g., 24-hour blood pressure recordings, actigraphy, salivary cortisol) and/or diary data (end-of-day reports, multiple momentary reports per day) in people’s natural settings is becoming more and more common in psychosomatic research. Such data are often aggregated (averaged for each person), and traditional statistical approaches used to analyze between-person differences in the aggregated scores. While there are statistical arguments for why it might be preferable to analyze the raw (unaggregated) data, such analyses usually lead to the same substantive conclusion. However, there are many interesting questions pertaining to the fluctuations within persons that cannot be addressed using aggregated data. This workshop will illustrate how multilevel models (including random coefficients and growth curve models), applied to the raw data, can be used to investigate a variety of such questions.

In summary, this workshop will introduce participants to the basic concepts underlying multilevel models, demonstrate how traditional RM-ANOVA and MANOVA are special cases of this broader class of models, and illustrate the application of these models to address a wide range of questions that are of interest to psychosomatic medicine researchers. Commonly used software for estimating multilevel models will be briefly reviewed and a list of recommended references provided.

Best Practices Workshop

Wednesday, March 1, 2006
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Chair: Gail Ironson
Presenters: Ken Freedland, Judy Skala, Karen Weihs, Lorenzo Cohen

The workshop will give "state of the art" clinical guidance to people who are seeing patients or are interested in doing clinically oriented research with medical patients. These suggested practices will be based on faculty experience, suggestions from the literature regarding both assessment and treatment, and published clinical standard of care guidelines. This year's workshop will focus on cancer and cardiovascular patients.

Basic questions would include - What are the psychological issues that cancer/cardiovascular patients face. What should clinicians look for and assess (i.e. depression, anxiety, loss, confusion) at various stages of the illness -(i.e. diagnosis, adjunctive treatment). Also what psychosocial treatments are available? (i.e. individual or group; Are these treatments helpful?)

*This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of The National Institutes of Health/Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (NIH/FAES) and the American Psychosomatic Society. The NIH/FAES is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The NIH/FAES designates this educational activity for a maximum of 28 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits.™ Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.