The first lecturer was the Bishop of Pilsen Mons. ThLic. Tomáš Holub, Th.D., who opened the lecture block focused on the relationship between spirituality and mental health with a presentation entitled Dialogue of Faith and Therapy.
"I always like to participate in multidisciplinary events and those that focus on spirituality interest me all the more. I myself accepted a position as a military chaplain relatively soon after I began my ministry as a priest, where our partners were often psychologists. Gradually, I completed my psychotherapeutic training myself, and to this day it is still a fundamental part of my life," says the bishop.
In addition to him, the spiritual block also featured the CDR chaplain Mgr. et Mgr. Petra Kasper Poldauf Dis. who spoke about her practical experience working with psychiatric patients, and Mgr. Jan Szutkowski, who focused on externalization techniques.
The first part of Friday's program was smoothly followed by a session on ADHD and attention deficit disorders. We have a lot of experience with their diagnosis and treatment at CDR, as we have been offering a twelve-day program for their diagnosis and treatment since the spring. Not only the specifics of the program, but also the work with these diagnoses in general were discussed by the lead physician of the program , Tereza Petrásková, M.D., Ph.D., and the lead psychologist , Mgr. Veronika Lechovská. MUDr. Mariia Kachanova then presented her own research on ADHD in the digital age.
The highlight of the Friday programme was a debate with singer and actor Adam Misik, who spoke about his experience with this diagnosis at the end of the ADHD session.
"I've been dealing with ADHD symptoms my whole life, but I didn't get a specific diagnosis until a few years ago. Today, ADHD is commonly talked about in the public space. Some people tend to downplay it, and that's unfortunate, but I'm not ashamed of it," Mšík sums up his experience.
Knitting can also cure
The second day opened with presentations of other facilities from the AKESO medical holding, of which CDR is a part. Both the Ondřejov Day Psychotherapy Sanatorium and the Mindwell Online Therapy Platform are not only involved in the field of mental health in the same way as CDR, but all of the facilities cooperate with each other, which is why they naturally had their place at the Symposium.
This was followed by a session focused on the relationship between psychiatry and sleep. CDR recently opened a dedicated Sleep Medicine Center and its director, David Panek, M.D., Ph.D. presented a series of lectures related to the various levels of the relationship between sleep and psychiatry. He focused on the relationship between sleep and ADHD, seamlessly building on the previous day's program. Prof. Jan Prasko Pavlov, MD, Csc. with a lecture on the use of KBT therapy in nightmares and MUDr. Boris Dvořáček, who discussed the neurobiology of dreams. At the end of the session, Pavel Doubek, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of CDR, presented a case report on circadian rhythm disorders.
The last block, led by MUDr. Doubek, focused on the role of creativity in working with patients with mental illness. Complementary therapies play an important role in the treatment in CDR, and therefore music therapy(Mgr. at Mgr. Zdeněk Maté) and theatre therapy(Assoc. Ing. Mgr. Irena Žantovská, Ph.D.) were presented, in the lecture of Ing. et Bc. Zuzana Rothanzlová' s lecture on finger knitting, the audience could try knitting themselves.
At the end, the participants had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the CDR with the Deputy for Mental Health MUDr. Martin Hollý, MBA and to see in person how psychiatric care in the CDR looks like in practice.
"My colleagues and I really enjoyed the symposium. It is interesting to see what modern psychiatry can look like and where we can go within the field," said one of the participants.