Lessons Learned: Conducting Cases of Manualized, Telephone-Based, Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Depression in Parkinson’s Disease (dPD)

My current clinical practice has been shifted to a telehealth format for the last three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it seems an apt moment to reexamine my participation in Dr. Roseanne Dobkin’s research on manualized telehealth therapy for depression in Parkinson’s disease patients (dPD), using a protocol titled "Teleheath Guided Self-Help for dPD," or "TH-GSH-dPD," for short (Dobkin et al., 2020). My participation involved, in part, being the therapist in  four case studies I have written about with "Alice," "Carl," "Ethan," and "Gary" (Durland, 2020). In these case studies, a subset of those in Dr. Dobkin’s group studies, I explored my clinical decision-making, seeking insight into how best to flexibly apply the dPD protocol to meet the needs of a heterogeneous clinical population. Here, my aim is to recontextualize and expand on the conclusions of my four case studies, based on my dissertation and conducted over three years ago (Durland, 2017), in light of both my recent experience providing mental health services and the Commentaries on the four case studies so perceptively contributed by Dr. Dobkin and her colleagues (Mann, Miller, St. Hill, & Dobkin, 2020) and by Liza Pincus (2020). In particular, I will focus first on (a) continuing the analysis of clinical decision-making involved in the case studies described in my earlier article (Duland, 2020); and then on (b) general issues related to the delivery of telehealth treatment.