Psychology Plus: Knowledge

Interviewing is a crucial means of gaining information in a variety of real-life contexts; including police, intelligence, health and mental health settings.  However, one of the issues is in being able to detect when someone is lying to you. 

The three techniques we will cover in this short course will be: 

1. The anticipated/unanticipated question technique.  This will cover the art of posing questions that are central to the narrative (and therefore important) but which a liar might not anticipate being asked. 
2. The Strategic Use of Evidence technique (also called SUE).  This looks at how disclosing certain types of evidence at specific points during the interview might increase the cognitive load on the liar. 
3. The Scharff technique.  This relies on giving the interviewee the illusion of knowing it all and asking for confirmation/disconfirmation of statements.

Duration: 2 consecutive days
Availability: 24 places
Careers: Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Criminal Justice and Security Career

Interviewing is a crucial means of gaining information in a variety of real-life contexts; including police, intelligence, health and mental health settings.  However, it is important to use interview techniques which maximise the possibility of someone remembering the information and which use approaches that make an interviewee feel comfortable. 

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) was developed by Geiselman and Fisher in 1992 and combines rapport building and memory enhancing techniques with questioning types that are tailored to the abilities and circumstances of the interviewee.  While used most often when interviewing victims and witnesses in police and other forensic contexts, the principles of this can be of use in health and mental health contexts too.  

Recent work has looked at how to adapt the ECI by varying the number of principles included and by encouraging the interviewee to complete a sketch before they commence the interview.  Principles such as the reverse order component have also been used in interviews where lying is suspected as this can help an interviewer to identify inconsistencies.

This one day course will introduce you to the basic principles underpinning the ECI, develop your skills in establishing rapport and give you practice in the ECI and the “sketch” cognitive interview as both an interviewer and a participant.

Duration: 1 full day
Date: May/June (exact date and time TBC)
Availability: 18 places

Careers: Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Criminal Justice Careers

Groups 4 Health is an evidence based applied clinical psychology intervention that was developed utilising social identity theory (Haslam et al., 2016).

It has been shown to reduce loneliness and social anxiety as well as enhancing mental health and group belonging. Indeed, some studies have found it to be just as effective as CBT (Cruwys et al., 2022).

This short course will introduce you to the intervention and the elements that comprise it. We will consider the social psychological perspective and theorising that underpins each part of the intervention. You will have the opportunity to have a go at each stage of the intervention.

We will finish by critically examining its application in practice as well as looking at how it has been adapted to specific areas, such as Groups 4 Education, and Groups 4 Health: Retirement.

Duration: 2 consecutive days
Date: May / June (exact date, time and location TBC)
Availability: 16 places

Careers: Social and Well-being Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology Research

Interviewing is a crucial means of gaining information in a variety of real-life contexts; including police, intelligence, business, health and mental health settings.

This is also a crucial skill for gaining information from research participants – including those who may experience some communication difficulties.  However, one of the key challenges with any interview is encouraging open disclosure and comfortable communication.

Rapport is crucial to this process…but how do we form it, what research exists on rapport building and what are the benefits of establishing good rapport in different contexts?

This short (1 day) course will introduce you to different perspectives on rapport building, give you an opportunity to “try out” different rapport building techniques and introduce you to the ways that you can measure and assess rapport in your own interview situations.  The course will be useful for anyone who is planning to develop their interviewing skills further, whether it be for research or practical purposes.

Duration: 1 full day
Date: May / June  (Date, time and location TBC)
Availability: 24 places

Careers: Counselling Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social and Welfare careers

Interviewing is a crucial means of gaining information in a variety of real-life contexts; including police, intelligence, business, health and mental health settings.

However many interview techniques focus on gaining information about things which have “already happened” rather than about things which “could happen in the future”. Despite this, there is often a need to gain information about someone’s intentions and to provide a realistic assessment of the level of risk.

This short (half day) course will focus on some common approaches to encouraging disclosure about and assessing the risk and credibility of future intentions.

Based on episodic future thought and predictive models of risk assessment, the course will give you an opportunity to “try out” the Scharff Technique and to identify some of the challenges faced by those attempting to predict risk in different contexts.

Duration: 1 half day
Date: May / June (exact date, time and location TBC)
Availability: 24 places

Careers: Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Criminal Justice and Security

This online workshop will provide you with a 'taster' of further training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and highlight progression routes to professional qualifications and becoming an Accredited CBT Therapist. 

CBT is a well-established and evidence-based talking therapy. It focuses on how your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect your feelings and behaviour and teaches you coping skills for dealing with different problems. It works for lots of different people and is widely recommended by national treatment guidelines across the UK, EU and North America. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) provides independent, evidence-based guidance for the NHS on the most effective, proven treatments. CBT is recommended in NICE guidelines for many different problems.

Workshop objectives:

• To develop an understanding of the psychological and philosophical ideas which inform CBT practice.
• To develop an understanding of the contexts in which CBT interventions are used
• To gain an understanding of the route of progression and further training, should you wish to become a BABCP Accredited CBT Therapist

Duration: 1 full days
Date: Exact date, time and location TBC
Availability: 25 places

Careers: Counselling Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social and Welfare careers

Video Interaction Guidance is a therapeutic intervention used to develop attuned interactions between individuals.  

It can be applied in a range of contexts, supporting the development of effective communication and positive relationships within families, and within education and healthcare settings.  It involves filming a positive interaction, making short clips of attuned moments and watching these back with the client to guide them to notice what they are doing, thinking and feeling when things are going well.  In this interactive workshop, you will have the opportunity to learn about the psychological theories underpinning Video Interaction Guidance, before practicing some of the key skills underpinning Video Interaction Guidance (video editing and taking part in a shared review of video clips with the client).  Through this you will also have the opportunity to reflect on your own strengths in communication.

Duration: 2 days
Availability: 6 places
Careers: Educational Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social and Wellbeing Professions

A well-known significant factor known to affect an individual’s psychological and physical well-being is ‘stress’.

This one day course will offer a sound introduction to Stress Management’ (morning session 9am-12pm) and ACT (afternoon session 1-3pm). The objective of the course is to provide current theoretical and empirical knowledge of stress management and ACT that is supported by evidence-based research. The course will include skills-based strategies to manage stress and distressful situations. There will be a practical session on the principles of ACT followed by a series of mindful-based ACT activities (as recommended by the NHS) which you can take part in and for future use.

Duration: 1 day
Availability: 25 places
Careers: Clinical Psychology, Counselling Psychology, Academic Psychology

This is a half-day workshop which introduces the concept of Motivational Interviewing or MI for short. 

This technique was initially developed for work in clinical settings by Psychologists and Counsellors to enable people to live healthier lives. For example, to support people in stopping smoking or to lose weight. However, it can be used in any situation where a person desires to change their behaviour. The strategies used within MI aim to increase someone’s desire to change and some of these techniques will be explored in this workshop. MI helps to build self-awareness and empowers the person to make the changes they wish to see in their own lives. This workshop will be interactive and will provide an opportunity to learn and develop skills which will be particularly useful for counselling and coaching work. However, the applicability of Motivational Interviewing encompasses all occupations which require people skills. 

Duration: Half day
Availability: 15 places
Careers: Counselling Psychology, Social and Welfare Professions, Clinical Psychology