Stressed To Zest

Peer groups, Cumbria spring group – second full day

Stressed To Zest — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:10:19 +0100

The start of the second full day here. In yesterday's post I wrote about the first full day. We've had so much rain over the last couple of days, it's a blessing to see the bright early sunlight splashed along the wall outside the window as I sit here writing. I sneaked away to bed with Catero my wife a bit early yesterday evening. It had been a long special day and now I'm up this morning feeling fresh.

Peer groups, Cumbria spring group – first full day

Stressed To Zest — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:59:39 +0100

Still before breakfast - at the start of the second full day now. Yesterday I wrote about "arriving". The noise of the mill stream just outside provides a constant back drop while we're here. When we arrived on Wednesday evening it was flowing so quietly, the water level almost as low as I've seen it. Then the rain came and it turned into a torrent. Roaring. In a way a bit of a parallel for our group. We've got going fast. So many of us know each other well. Familiar place. Familiar to be in one of these residential groups together again. And new. Extraordinary to "age" alongside these people. We've brought photographs from earlier groups going back over twenty years. Poignant, funny, endearing, happy-sad.

Peer groups, Cumbria spring group – first morning: "arriving"

Stressed To Zest — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:40:08 +0100

First morning of the "Mixed Group". We have been meeting like this - in an old converted watermill in Cumbria - nearly every year since the start of the 90's. This year's residential is a bit different. For many it's a 20 year reunion (or thereabouts). Sixteen old friends! Sounds a little like "The big chill" or "Peter's friends" or any of a whole series of other films and stories looking at "reunions". I've written a lot about these residential groups in this blog - see, for example, the group work links in read more

Walking in Skye & Kintail: lessons, self-compassion & posttraumatic growth

Stressed To Zest — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:53:22 +0100

Still less than three days since the most intense, prolonged, potentially catastrophic experience of my life. What have I learned ... both personally and as a therapist? Gratitude ... of course. Gratitude to the mountain rescue service, gratitude to my wife & family & friends, gratitude for my health, for the extraordinary beauty of this world, for being able to walk, to breath, to smile.  And gratitude can even help me process what happened better.

read more

Walking in Skye & Kintail: mountain rescue, helicopter winches, and avoiding death & PTSD

Stressed To Zest — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:58:44 +0100

It's really early, and paradoxically I should be sleeping beautifully because I'm in a comfortable room at the Sligachan Hotel on the Isle of Skye. However I'm not too fussed - acute sleep deprivation may well affect memory consolidation and reduce the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma. And why the possible PTSD?

read more

The jazz trio metaphor: reworking the core conditions, relational depth, compassion, & two kinds of empathy (2nd post)

Stressed To Zest — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:42:37 +0100

read more

The jazz trio metaphor: reworking the core conditions, relational depth, compassion & two kinds of empathy (1st post)

Stressed To Zest — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:37:49 +0100

Working as a psychotherapist or counsellor, practising as a doctor, participating in interpersonal groupwork, and at the heart of relating deeply with another human being - I have internal reminders, charts, ways of helping myself be present in as constructive a way as I can. One inner chart or internal reminder is the jazz trio metaphor. A bit like a musician revisiting and making fresh again their playing of a well known classical work, the jazz trio metaphor takes another look at the key, so often explored territory of the therapeutic relationship - which overlaps to a huge extent with the more universal territory of how to be profoundly present in any deep relationship with another human being.

read more

BABCP spring meeting: Nick Grey on memory-focused approaches in CBT for adults with PTSD - writing suggestions (4th post)

Stressed To Zest — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:23:14 +0100

(A handout of the key points in this blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file)

I have written a series of blog posts on Nick Grey's expert workshop on CBT treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. The day's focus was particularly on treatment approaches involving the trauma memory itself. Nick highlighted four interlinked memory-focused methods - exposure & reliving, written narrative, site visit, and discrimination of triggers. This post is the text of a client handout I subsequently put together discussing how best to go about the written narrative.

read more

BABCP spring meeting: Nick Grey on memory-focused approaches in CBT for adults with PTSD - breadth of application (3rd post)

Stressed To Zest — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 05:09:13 +0100

This is the third in a series of posts triggered by Nick Grey's workshop on memory-focused approaches in CBT for adults with PTSD. In the second post yesterday, I wrote about " ... treatment structure". In today's post I want to step back for a moment and get a broader perspective. These trauma-focused treatments have much wider applicability than just for DSM-IV-TR congruent, single episode traumas, and its this wider applicability that's a major reason for me doing this workshop.

read more

BABCP spring meeting: Nick Grey on memory-focused approaches in CBT for adults with PTSD - treatment structure (2nd post)

Stressed To Zest — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:37:22 +0100

read more

BABCP spring meeting: Nick Grey on memory-focused approaches in cognitive therapy for adults with PTSD - introduction (1st post)

Stressed To Zest — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:35:07 +0100

I've just arrived from Scotland off the sleeper for the two days of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Spring Workshops and Conference. Today it's workshops and we have a choice of five. I'm going to Nick Grey's on "Memory-focused approaches in cognitive therapy for adults with PTSD" . The publicity reads:

"Guidelines from around the world for the treatment of PTSD in adults recommend trauma-focused CBT as a first line treatment. In essence ‘trauma-focused’ means placing an emphasis on discussing the details of the traumatic memories. This can be emotionally demanding for both patient and therapist. Despite the treatment guidelines many therapists still do not use ‘trauma-focused’, i.e. memory-focused, approaches.

read more

Recent research: articles from March journals

Stressed To Zest — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 06:12:28 +0100

read more

Update on website traffic: my own favourite top 15 (6-10) - therapist feedback, relationships, conflict, group work, & walking

Stressed To Zest — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:54:59 +0100

Last month 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". This got me thinking - "What are my own personal favourites?" 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.

read more

Angus & Greenberg's book "Narrative in emotion-focused therapy" (4th post): facilitating narrative change processes

Stressed To Zest — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:32:02 +0100

read more

Angus & Greenberg's book "Narrative in emotion-focused therapy" (3rd post): narrative modes & phases

Stressed To Zest — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:18:29 +0100

In the last post in this sequence "Angus & Greenberg's book ...

read more

Angus & Greenberg's book "Narrative in emotion-focused therapy" (2nd post): narrative types & modes

Stressed To Zest — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 06:47:18 +0100

read more

Angus & Greenberg's book "Narrative in emotion-focused therapy" (1st post): context

Stressed To Zest — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:43:48 +0000

I was due to go through to Glasgow today for the fifth workshop in this seven seminar emotion-focused therapy (EFT) series. Sadly my back has been playing up ... as it occasionally does ... and it really doesn't make good sense to travel. The soreness is getting better nicely, but it can do with a bit more TLC as I gradually mobilise more.

read more

Commitment contracts: a personal example

Stressed To Zest — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 06:11:58 +0000

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).

read more

Commitment contracts: orientation, practicalities & use as therapeutic tools

Stressed To Zest — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 05:44:46 +0000

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).

I wrote yesterday about "Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals". In today's post I'd like to look a bit more at the practicalities of setting up and using commitment contracts. I'll illustrate this by talking about my own personal exploration of this area, but I'd also like to highlight that I think these ideas and the associated web resources are potentially very useful tools for psychotherapists, counsellors, life coaches and their clients.

read more

Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals

Stressed To Zest — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:13:30 +0000

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).

read more