Handouts & questionnaires for general relationships (first post)
2nd November 2009
Relationships are right at the heart of human health and wellbeing. The first three sets of handouts listed below highlight the increased death rates, poorer psychological health and lowered wellbeing in those with worse relationships. There is a rather confusing plethora of different questionnaires for assessing relationship networks. I like …
Training in group facilitation
1st November 2009
I'm facilitating a group today on "Relationships & emotional intelligence". When explaining why someone might want to come to the group, the initial publicity leaflet reads "It's worth taking the time to look at our relationships because they are such a huge part of our lives. Past relationships deeply affect …
Recent research: six studies on depression – pregnancy, young children, antidepressant side effects, SAD & CBT, and suicide risk
29th October 2009
Here are half a dozen recent research papers on depression (all details & abstracts to these studies are given further down this blog posting). Yonkers et al's publication is a very welcome one - "The management of depression during pregnancy: a report from the American Psychiatric Association and the American …
Autogenic training: eighth session
26th October 2009
Here are the handouts and recordings for the eighth and final session of this basic Autogenic Training course. The initial "Autogenic relaxation training" page introduces the method and gives access to the previous seven lessons in the training sequence. There are two main themes for this last session. One is …
Assessing and encouraging enjoyable activities
25th October 2009
What we've seen in our work is that most people don't give themselves permission to live until they've been given a terminal diagnosis. Stephen Levine I came across an interesting research study recently: Pressman, S. D., K. A. Matthews, et al. (2009). "Association of Enjoyable Leisure Activities With Psychological and …
Recent research: six studies on emotional & relationship ‘intelligence’ – placebo, warmth, mindfulness, & emotions
22nd October 2009
Here are half a dozen research papers that have recently interested me in the broad areas of emotional and relationship "intelligence" (all details & abstracts to these studies are given further down this blog posting). Kelley et al report on "Patient and practitioner influences on the placebo effect" which in …
Some upcoming conferences in CBT & in Positive Psychology
20th October 2009
The autumn edition of the BABCP magazine CBT Today carries information about a wealth of courses & conferences. Here are half a dozen that look interesting, including three - children & families and a couple of European conferences - that aren't mentioned in CBT Today: ACAMH-BABCP Conference, Croydon, London. Cognitive …
Assessing attachment in adults
18th October 2009
I'm a doctor and psychotherapist who's interested in using attachment ideas to improve how helpful I can be for clients. Awareness of attachment issues informs therapy, it doesn't dictate it. An obvious question is whether it's sometimes worth assessing attachment in a "formal" way. I'm no expert in this area. …
Recent research: six papers with broad social implications – inequality, health insurance, spanking, bullying, and religion
15th October 2009
Here are half a dozen recent research papers with broad social implications (all details & abstracts to these studies are given further down this blog posting). Kay and colleagues publish on "Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things …
Autogenic training: seventh session
12th October 2009
Here are handouts and recordings for the seventh Autogenic Training session. The initial "Autogenic relaxation training" page gives introductory details of this method. In the face-to-face trainings that I run, I would typically start the two hour class by practising last time's Autogenic Training exercise together - in this case …