Sleep Disorders Training Course
Thursday 23 January 2025 – Virtual (Microsoft Teams)
Psychiatrists and psychiatric patients are increasingly
recognising that good sleep is essential to good
mental health. In the past, poor sleep was seen as
a symptom of mental illness but as we come to
understand the relationship between these conditions
we have learned that the relationship is much more
complex and that poor sleep is a significant risk factor
for psychiatric illness. This means that the recognition
and treatment of sleep disorders may present novel
ways of improving psychiatric outcomes. It is also
important to be aware of the impact that psychiatric
treatments may have on a patient’s sleep, for better
or worse. Sleep medicine is a rapidly evolving field,
and the diagnostics and treatment of sleep disorders
is increasingly moving out of specialist sleep clinics
into other spheres of medicine such as primary care
and psychiatry.
By attending this course, you will learn about
the range of sleep disorders you may encounter in
clinical practice, and will learn how to recognise,
investigate and treat these disorders. You will be
given practical tools to incorporate aspects of
sleep medicine into your routine clinical work and
provide effective and holistic treatments for your patients.
Learning outcomes
1. Understand the basic structure and physiology of sleep.
2. Appreciate the importance of sleep in mental health, particularly its role in depression.
3. Be aware of the range of sleep disorders you may encounter in clinical practice.
4. Be able to recognise and screen for sleep disorders in psychiatric patients.
5. Understand the pharmacology of medications used in insomnia in order to prescribe effectively and safely.
6. Learn some effective behavioural interventions for insomnia
About our trainer Dr Hugh Selsick, Consultant Liaison Neuropsychiatrist
Dr Hugh Selsick is a Consultant in sleep medicine and psychiatry and lead clinician at the Insomnia Clinic at
the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, University College London Hospitals and Consultant in
sleep medicine at the Sleep Disorders Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital. He majored in physiology at the
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg before completing an Honours Degree in Physiology and MBBCh.
He runs the Sleep Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is a council member of the Sleep Medicine
Section at the Royal Society of Medicine. His special interest is in the relationship between sleep disorders and psychiatric disorders.
Upcoming Courses
Nov 2024
21/11/2024 - Behavioural Interventions for Sleep Disorders Training CourseJan 2025
23/01/2025 - Sleep Disorders Training Course