Recent research: articles from summer journals
10th September 2013
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 20,000 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …
A more personal university reunion - reflecting further, personality change and wellbeing
26th August 2013
At the weekend I went back to my old university and spent warm, precious time with half a dozen old friends. I have already written a couple of blog posts about this experience ... "A more personal university reunion: heading South, emotional intelligence and re-visioning our pasts" and "A more …
A more personal university reunion - heading South, emotional intelligence, and re-visioning our pasts
24th August 2013
"The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices." Irvin YalomI'm on a train on my way down to East Anglia. This afternoon seven of us, who were all at Cambridge in the late 60's/early 70's, are due to meet up. Last year I went back to an …
CBT Today: keeping up with the literature
21st August 2013
(Note an updated & extended version of this blog post is now available) I have been asked to write a column on "Keeping up with the literature" for CBT Today "the official magazine of the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies". I thought it might be helpful to put …
Melbourne lecture: "How can we help our clients more effectively?" - encouraging benefits from using sessional feedback
15th August 2013
(the full 48 slide Powerpoint lecture can be downloaded by clicking here) I wrote a blog post yesterday entitled "Melbourne lecture: 'How can we help our clients more effectively?' - the current worrying situation". Although effect sizes produced by psychotherapy are good and subsequent benefits typically outlast gains produced by …
Melbourne lecture: "How can we help our clients more effectively?" - the current worrying situation
14th August 2013
(the full 48 slide Powerpoint lecture can be downloaded by clicking here) I gave a lecture in Melbourne today entitled "How can we help our clients more effectively?" An initial slide highlighted the main points I covered: I talked about the many meta-analyses that have documented psychotherapy's effectiveness, but went …
Therapeutic alliance ruptures/tensions: description, frequency, causes & effects
11th July 2013
I wrote a blog post yesterday entitled "Therapeutic alliance ruptures: common, very challenging & a key area for increasing therapist (and personal) helpfulness". I think this area is so important that I'd like to spend additional time exploring it more thoroughly. I want to clarify what we mean by an …
"Therapeutic alliance ruptures": common, very challenging & a key area for increasing therapist (and personal) helpfulness
10th July 2013
We had another of our small peer Emotion-Focused Therapy supervision/practice groups yesterday evening. Half a dozen of us were able to make it. We'd agreed we would look particularly at "therapeutic alliance ruptures" at this meeting. As a doctor, I can't help finding the term "alliance rupture" rather giggle-inducing. I …
Building on our strengths
4th July 2013
A few months ago I wrote a series of three blog posts on the theme "New research suggests CBT depression treatment is more effective if we focus on strengths rather than weaknesses". Possible points ... the series of studies that have suggested that a strength focus is more helpful (the …
Achieving Clinical Excellence meeting in Amsterdam: second day (2nd post)
6th June 2013
Yesterday was my second full day here in Amsterdam at the "Achieving Clinical Excellence" conference put on by the International Center for Clinical Excellence. The first full day had been a workshop with Scott Miller on "Feedback informed treatment: pushing your clinical effectiveness to the next level". This second day …