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 21,400 abstracts.  I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon at the top of this web page) will keep you up to speed with what I'm finding interesting.  Additionally you can view this highlighted research by visiting Scoop.it (click on the "it!" icon at the top of this page).  At Scoop.it, I stream publications into five overlapping topic areas: Cognitive & General Psychotherapy, Depression, Compassion & Mindfulness, Positive Psychology and Healthy Living.

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 21,200 abstracts.  I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon at the top of this web page) will keep you up to speed with what I'm finding interesting.  Additionally you can view this highlighted research by visiting Scoop.it (click on the "it!" icon at the top of this page).  At Scoop.it, I stream publications into five overlapping topic areas: Cognitive & General Psychotherapy, Depression, Compassion & Mindfulness, Positive Psychology and Healthy Living.

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 21,000 abstracts.

I wrote yesterday about the two pre-European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP) workshops I went to on "Positive supervision" and on "Positive relationships".  Then in mid-afternoon on Tuesday, the conference proper began.  It was heralded by Taiko drummers and a cluster of brief welcoming speeches.  Apparently there are 920 people at the conference from about 50 different countries.  The country spread is similar, but the numbers are up 50% on the approximately 600 attendees at the 5th ECPP I went to in Copenhagen four years ago.

Last September I went back to Cambridge for a reunion ... the first time I'd ever been back to school or university for such a thing.  It was an experiment in "emotional archaeology" and I wrote a series of blog posts about it.  At one stage I experimented with a dialogue between the 22 year old and the current 62 year old versions of me.  In the post "Going back for a university reunion: self-esteem, hallucinogens, wonder & the transpersonal", I wrote "I changed subject too from philosophy to medicine (in 1970).

I average a little over three hours weekly scanning medical and psychological journals on the internet. Typically I zoom through the article titles looking for anything relevant to stress, health & wellbeing. If something seems interesting, I read the article's abstract.  I may well then download it to my bibliographic database - I use EndNote. Currently I have well over 19,000 references stored and the number grows steadily.  Sometimes I'll get hold of the text of the full article - by subscribing to the journal, buying the article, searching for the author's academic website, or emailing the corresponding author directly.  I use this information I glean to improve my treatment of clients who come to me for help, and as a basis for talks and articles.

In the words of Mary Oliver's beautiful poem "The summer day":

Earlier this year I used Google Analytics to identify the most read pages on this website and I wrote the post "Update on website traffic: the ten most popular blog posts". I then wondered - "What are my own personal favourites?" and I quickly realised that the posts that I've written that have had the most impact on me and my practice as a therapist are nearly always made up of sequences of blog posts rather than just individual items. I said that glancing back over the last year or so, themes that stood out included mindfulness, therapist feedback, self-control, conflict, embodied cognition and positive psychology. Going further back still there are the posts about interpersonal groupwork, relationships, therapeutic writing, walking in nature, compassion, exercise, healthy lifestyle, attachment and goal setting.

(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc and as a PDF file).

I've already written a couple of blog posts on the short day workshop I'm running early next month - "Psychotherapy & positive psychology: why psychotherapists should pay attention" and "Psychotherapy & positive psychology: the assessment dashboard".  On the day itself I plan to start with a little background on what positive psychology is and how it has developed, then comment on why it's so relevant for psychotherapists, discuss assessment issues, and finally give examples by introducing three areas - self-determination theory, positive emotions, and self-compassion.