Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI) to Improve Sleep in “Real World” Clients

Insomnia is a common yet neglected condition in medical and mental health settings with longstanding and adverse consequences for the client. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) is a four to six-session treatment program designed for people who have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or find that sleep is unrefreshing. CBTI is a scientifically proven, highly effective way to treat insomnia. Dr. Jared Minkel will review key interventions from CBT-I, putative underlying mechanisms, and ways to implement the intervention with specific cases. To illustrate, he will provide case examples of people who improved their sleep using time in bed restriction and address interventions to change circadian rhythms by adjusting the timing of exposure to bright light.

Dr. Minkel completed Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania where he specialized in sleep deprivation studies. While there, he completed two sleep focused clinical placements: one on pediatric sleep at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the other at the Philadelphia VA Hospital in the specialty sleep clinic. He completed an American Psychological Association-approved internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center where he worked with Andrew Krystal, M.D., a leader in the field of both cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and medications for insomnia. They published a comprehensive review of sleep medications (Minkel, J., & Krystal, A. D. (2013). Optimizing the pharmacologic treatment of insomnia: current status and future horizons. Sleep medicine clinics, 8(3),333-350.) Dr. Minkel then served as the director of the Adult Behavioral Sleep Medicine program at Rhode Island Hospital where he also served on the faculty of the Warren Alpert Brown University Medical School. Dr. Minkel is currently the Chief Science Officer at PredictView, a startup company in digital health. He is licensed in Rhode Island and has a very small private practice  (https://slapclinic.com).