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Therapeutic writing & speaking: inspiration from values (background information)

Writing (or speaking) about our values or areas of our lives that are of particular personal importance can help us feel less threatened by stresses and more able to see situations clearly.  There are many research studies demonstrating this.  For example writing about personal values has been shown to reduce both subjectively experienced psychological stress and the body's adrenaline response to taking an academic exam (Sherman, Bunyan et al. 2009).  This easing in sense of threat tends to boost the exam results people achieve, especially for those who tend to get more stressed (Cohen, Garcia et al.

Meeting at relational depth: what gets in the way?

This is the fifth in a series of six blog posts triggered by going to a workshop "Meeting at relational depth" taken by Mick Cooper in Glasgow.  I've already written about two exercises we explored during the morning session - "Meeting at relational depth: what does it involve?" and "Meeting at relational depth: what intrigued me most".  In the afternoon session, we mostly focused on two further exercises:

Strategies of disconnection:  Participants will be invited to take some time, in pairs, to discuss the ways in which they may tend to disconnect from others.  There will then be time to explore the relevance of this to therapeutic practice.

Meeting at relational depth: links to attachment

Yesterday I wrote a post "Meeting at relational depth: what intrigued me most".  I described how, in this one day workshop, I paired up with someone I'd never met before and acted as client in a 20 minute role-played counselling session.  Every minute we independently estimated how deeply we felt connected (on a 0-10 scale).  When we looked at our estimates at the end of the session, they almost exactly matched.  I felt as connected to my "counsellor" as she did to me, even though she had said only a few words.  What's going on?

Our life stories: needs, beliefs & behaviours - part two, "beliefs"

I posted yesterday on the first, "Needs" section of the "Needs, beliefs, behaviours" diagram (below).  Today I want to say a little about the second section of the diagram - "Beliefs".

Beliefs

This diagram is downloadable both as a Powerpoint slide and as a PDF file

Our life stories: needs, beliefs & behaviours - part one, "needs"

This is the first of a series of four brief posts giving more information about a model I use a lot, especially when working with people who are trying to change long term personality patterns.  The ideas aren't at all original, although this particular way of presenting them is my own.  So the first step in the model is "needs".  This is illustrated in the following diagram:

Needs

This diagram is downloadable both as a Powerpoint slide and as a PDF file

Our life stories: needs, beliefs & behaviours

This post describes the "Needs, beliefs & behaviours" diagrams, best viewable on screen in PDF format (slides 1 & 2 and slides 3 & 4), but also downloadable in Powerpoint format (slides 1 & 2 and slides 3 & 4).  The post below is downloadable as a Word format handout. 

Recent research: three studies on sex, three on couples, and one on both!

I recently asked a computer-literate friend how I could encourage more people to visit this blog (thank you to all who already do!).  He said "Write more about sex and violence."  Ouch.  I replied, rather self-righteously, that I wasn't just interested in increasing website traffic for its own sake - that the primary purpose of this blog is to be helpful.  Well here I go - some good research studies on sex (and couples) that I hope are helpful!

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