Integrating Psychotherapeutic Concepts to Enhance Serious Illness Communication: Assessment of a Model Curriculum

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Serious illness communication training often focuses on sharing medical information, discussing goals of care, and supporting patients and caregivers. Few communication frameworks explicitly integrate psychosocial concepts to improve therapeutic efficacy. <b><i>Objectives:</i></b> To develop, implement, and evaluate a half-day workshop that integrates psychotherapeutic concepts into palliative care communication across four professional settings. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Using Kern's six-step curriculum development model, we created an interactive workshop focused on psychological formulation and countertransference. The workshop was delivered to four cohorts: a national conference, an international palliative care congress, a fellows' education day, and a social work-focused summit. Pre-, post-, and eight-week follow-up surveys were administered, assessing Kirkpatrick's four levels of training evaluation. <b><i>Results:</i></b> In total, 203 palliative care clinicians completed the presurvey, 168 completed the post-survey, and 79 completed the eight-week follow-up. Knowledge of formulation increased from a median of 3 (interquartile range [IQR] 2-4) preworkshop to 5 (IQR 4-5) at eight weeks (<i>p</i> < 0.001). Knowledge of countertransference increased from 4 (IQR 3-4) to 5 (IQR 4-5) (also <i>p</i> < 0.001). Satisfaction was high (92% satisfied or highly satisfied), and most participants reported meaningful impact on their clinical practice (89%), teaching (93%), and team collaboration (93%) at eight-week follow-up. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> A multisite, half-day workshop significantly enhanced palliative care clinicians' knowledge and perceived application of core psychotherapeutic concepts. Future work should explore remote and longitudinal modalities to support ongoing skill integration.