Project Description:
olescents and young adults sometimes require psychotherapeutic interventions for psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety. However, young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have co-occurring mental health conditions (i.e., IDD-MH) are often denied access to high quality psychotherapy treatment (Chapman et al., 2023). This results from a lack of providers with training and/or willingness to support people with IDD-MH as well as misconceptions held by therapists that people with IDD neither need nor respond well to psychotherapy (Whitehouse et al., 2006). There is a clear need for adaptations in the psychotherapy context to enable more persons with IDD to access therapy and support. Recently recommendations have been made to adapt cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an effective psychotherapeutic intervention for addressing anxiety and depression, for persons with IDD-MH. However, few to no current models exist regarding systematic approaches to adapting psychotherapy while promoting self-determination for people with IDD within that context. The Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI; Shogren et al., 2019) is a potential model that could be integrated into CBT-oriented psychotherapy to make it accessible to people with IDD while promoting self-determination. The SDLMI comprehensively and systematically provides a framework to support people with IDD to develop self-regulated goal-setting and problem-solving abilities to enhance self-determination and goal attainment. It is designed to be applied to a variety of teaching or supportive contexts, providing a systematic, yet flexible set of components that can be used by a provider in supporting a client to self-direct their goal setting and attainment process, increasing their agency and self-determination. The adapted SDLMI, when coupled with CBT, has the potential to increase access to mental health care for adults with IDD-MH. Further, our team has recently developed a conceptual framework for combining SDLMI and CBT (Chapman et al., 2023). By improving accessibility of mental health services, we can create more inclusivity within the psychotherapeutic space and enable more therapists to serve clients with IDD-MH.
This project is designed to develop the psychotherapy intervention manual for the SDLMI and pilot with 20 persons that have with IDD – MH.
