CBT

Working with Angst in Counselling

What do you say to a client whose presenting issue is deep angst over the question of relationship? Whether the person is in a primary relationship and deeply unhappy, questioning whether to stay or to go, or the person longs for that primary relationship in order to feel happy and fulfilled, the issue is a […]

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing for Trauma

If your client was suffering from trauma, which approach would you choose to help them? In this post we explore eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, or EMDR. Background EMDR is a trauma-focused psychological intervention created from an accelerated information-processing model. Because it also incorporates dissociation and nonverbal representation of traumas (such as visual memories), EMDR […]

How to Close the Chronic Pain Pathway

We’would like to introduce you to two people; in fact, more than introduce you. For the next several minutes, we’would like you to become these people. The first is a chronic pain patient, and the second is the family member caring for that patient. The patient We’ll call you Chris. You are of working age […]

CBT in a Nutshell

We can broadly define CBT as a combination of cognitive and behavioural therapeutic approaches used to help clients modify limiting, maladaptive thoughts and behaviours, ones that are often inconsistent with consensual reality (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). The basic premise of CBT is that troublesome emotions are difficult to change directly, so CBT targets […]

CBT Techniques: Cognitive and Behavioural

In CBT, verbal techniques are used to bring forth the client’s automatic thoughts, analyse the logic behind the thoughts, identify unhelpful assumptions, and examine the validity of the assumptions. Assumptions, once identified, are open to modification, which can occur by asking the client if the assumption seems reasonable, by having the client generate reasons for […]

Emotion in Motion

If you look at the Oxford Dictionary entry for the word ‘emotion’, you will find it is a noun, a thing, described as follows: A strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others: she was attempting to control her emotions: his voice was shaky with emotion. Instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished […]

Book Review: Developing Resilience

Neenan, M. (2009). Developing resilience: A cognitive-behavioural approach. East Essex, UK: Routledge. Pain, tragedy and sadness happen, how people react and recover from adverse life events can be as varied as the event itself. Why is this? How can two people experience the same incident yet one individual can fall apart and the other can […]

Psychosocial Treatments for Schizophrenia

Successful treatment of schizophrenia depends on a regimen of both drug and psychosocial support therapies. While antipsychotic medication can help control the symptoms of psychosis associated with schizophrenia, it cannot help the person find and maintain a job, establish effective social relationships, increase their coping skills, or teach them to communicate well with others. Poverty, […]

Tharapeutic Approaches and Applications

Most therapists utilise an integrative approach towards counselling that combines approaches and methods from a broad range of theoretical orientations as they assist clients through the various challenges of life. To help counsellors come to a better place of integration in being able to “pick” the right approach at the right time, we’ll overview four […]

CBT: Applications and Challenges

Cognitive approaches have been applied as means of treatment across a variety of presenting concerns and psychological conditions. Cognitive approaches emphasise the role of thought in the development and maintenance of unhelpful or distressing patterns of emotion or behaviour. Beck* originally applied his cognitive approach to the treatment of depression. Cognitive therapy has also been […]

Dealing Effectively with Loneliness

Loneliness is such a subjective concept and what really is important here is the degree to which loneliness is affecting one’s life and/or a family’s life where relevant. What age is the person, because life goals and needs are often quite different for different age groups and for people with different priorities at different stages […]

Child Abuse and Neglect: Intervention

There is not a clear cut off line from where the assessment ends and the intervention begins in child and family work. Following is a number of approaches to intervention that have been selected because they are consistent with values of self-determination, respect, dignity empowerment and social justice: values commonly drawn upon in child and […]