Yesterday was the ninth evening of this "Life skills" training.  I wrote about the eighth session last week.  The sequence of regular weekly classes now moves on to increasing gaps between sessions - so it's three weeks until the tenth, a further five weeks until the eleventh, and then an additional eleven weeks until the final twelfth session.  My hope is that we will be able to arrange occasional follow-up meetings even after that.

Yesterday I wrote about David Clark's inspiring conference talk on "IAPT: achievements, lessons and the future".  The lecture was followed by a rather poor conference lunch - I had an image of us all dipping our heads into the brown paper bags of sandwiches we were given, like feedbags for horses.  A good conversation with neighbours over lunch, then wandering to a different building to get to the "Metaphors and stories in CBT" panel discussion with Richard Stott and Ann Hackmann.  Paul Blenkiron had been billed to contribute too, but apparently his wife had had a baby this morning - I hope they're doing well.

It's the third and last day of this annual BABCP conference (although I'm posting this a day after writing it).  I wrote yesterday about a symposium I went to on the second day.  Today I was more settled - I got out for a pre-breakfast run and then had a chance to meditate.  There's nothing that really grabs my attention in the first set of symposia this morning, so I'm taking the opportunity to review how the conference has been so far and what my plans are for the rest of the day. 

The second day of the annual BABCP conference in Manchester started bright and early.  I wrote a bit in my room - I've already written a couple of posts about the first day of the conference - before heading down for an early breakfast.  Breakfast was good - much better than yesterday's disappointing packed lunch.  Social too, chatting to a couple of other "early birds" about the conference and CBT more generally.  Back to my student room - the whole conference is at the main Manchester university.  Then a good difficulty to have - trying to decide between two interesting options - either Nick Tarrier running a "skills class" on "Broad Minded Affective Coping (BMAC): a new and positive technique for the CBT tool box" or a symposium with the initially unappetizing title "Understanding anhedonia and p

This year's annual British CBT conference jamboree has been a bit unusual for me.  I've been coming to these British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) conferences for years now, and routinely I would start with one of the full day pre-conference workshops before launching into the three days of conference proper.  I was booked into Emily Holmes's "Mental imagery in cognitive-behaviour therapy: PTSD and beyond" workshop, but then poor Catero my wife hurt her back at the weekend and so plans were changed and I delayed coming down from Edinburgh.  Recovery proceeds and here I am - a day & a half "late" and checking my mobile for news from home - but here for the first afternoon of the three day conference proper.

I wrote last week on "Barbara Fredrickson 'How positive emotions work, and why' (fifth post)" and the initial two key points she made in her talk - 1.) Positivity opens us, and 2.) Positivity transforms us.  Today's post discusses the second half of her talk and her three further key points.

Yesterday we had the sixth session of this twelve evening "Life skills" course.  I wrote last week about the fifth session.  A dozen slides covering material we explored are viewable/downloadable at slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.