Monthly archive | Good Medicine

Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (3rd post) - first week's practice

Originally added on 22nd December 2011
Last updated on 12th January 2012

Time to roll up our sleeves and start turning Williams & Penman's book's "meditation recipes" into genuinely nourishing meals. I have already written a first blog post on why we have good reason to be optimistic about the benefits we can achieve with this kind of self-help venture. The second post encouraged us to get ready for the mindfulness practice. We are now at chapter five in the book - "Mindfulness week one: waking up to the autopilot".

"Sleep well and live better: overcoming insomnia using CBT" - the links between sleep disturbance and depression (2nd post)

Originally added on 20th December 2011
Last updated on 10th January 2012

I wrote a first post last month about a workshop I went to given by Professor Colin Espie - "Sleep well and live better: overcoming insomnia using CBT". I mentioned that he went through the sequence: What is insomnia? Why is it a big deal? Why is cognitive behaviour therapy relevant? Is it clinically effective? How can it be delivered in real world practice? In today's post I would like to look more at Why is it a big deal? And I would like particularly to focus on links between insomnia and depression.

Particularly if you're socially anxious, try to stay task-focused rather than self-focused

Originally added on 17th December 2011
Last updated on 12th January 2012

(This & last week's social anxiety blog posts are available as a PDF file or a Word doc - you may need to 'save' the latter before you can open it)

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point" C. S. Lewis

Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (2nd post) - getting ready

Originally added on 15th December 2011
Last updated on 3rd February 2012

An intriguing and encouraging development in therapeutic writing

Originally added on 14th December 2011
Last updated on 6th February 2012

(This blog post is available both as a PDF file and as a Word doc - you may need to 'save' the latter before you can open it)

"You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." Jonathan Safran Foer

"No man was ever wise by chance." Lucius Seneca

Fear of blushing is more a problem of hyperawareness than of facial temperature

Originally added on 10th December 2011
Last updated on 12th January 2012

(This & next week's social anxiety blog posts are available as a PDF file or a Word doc - you may need to 'save' the latter before you can open it)

"At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time." Frederich Nietzsche

Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (1st post) - introduction

Originally added on 8th December 2011
Last updated on 29th August 2012

This is the first in a series of intended posts about using Mark Williams & Danny Penman's excellent recent book "Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world" as a self-help training in mindfulness practice. My hope is that these blog posts will provide some back-up resources to the many good things already present in the book, accompanying CD & linked website.

Recent research: articles from November journals

Originally added on 5th December 2011
Last updated on 2nd January 2012

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 16,900 abstracts.

Emotion-focused therapy workshop series (second post): client processes and therapist-client conflict

Originally added on 27th November 2011
Last updated on 10th July 2013

So yesterday was a day seminar on Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) with Robert Elliott. I wrote yesterday about my excitement over starting this sequence of monthly workshops - there are another five due over January to May next year. Well how did the day go?

Emotion-focused therapy workshop series (first post): excitement and why am I doing this?

Originally added on 26th November 2011
Last updated on 20th March 2013

I woke gently bubbling with excitement. I'm off in a couple of hours or so to Glasgow to join a course entitled "Emotion-focused psychotherapy: Level 2 workshop series". Sadly I missed the first day of this seven seminar sequence - I was at the October Scottish Mixed Group peer residential. Hopefully I'll get to all of the next six. There's a seminar scheduled for today and then one a month from January through until May. I believe there will be about 20 participants, presumably all pretty experienced psychotherapists/counsellors. What fun!