"The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness.  This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being.  It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant. "


Posts tagged with 'training'

Practice-based evidence can complement evidence-based practice so very well

4th February 2015

Yesterday I wrote a blog post "Routine Outcome Monitoring can really help therapists clarify where they need to try harder". Today's post extends this extremely important point. About twenty years ago Howard and colleagues (Howard, Moras, Brill, Martinovich, & Lutz, 1996) introduced a crucial new approach for improving our outcomes. …

Routine Outcome Monitoring can really help therapists clarify where they need to try harder

3rd February 2015

I recently wrote a couple of blog posts - "Psychotherapy (and psychotherapist) outcomes are good but largely stagnant" and "Fascinatingly, therapists themselves vary considerably in their effectiveness". In the second of these posts I commented "A paper published just last month (Green, Barkham et al. 2014) found that the 25% …

Fascinatingly, therapists themselves vary considerably in their effectiveness

21st January 2015

I wrote a post yesterday on the good, but largely stagnant, outcomes currently being achieved in psychotherapy. In today's post I highlight the fascinating finding that psychotherapists themselves vary considerably in their effectiveness. If we can help those with poorer outcomes to begin matching those with better, great gains are …

Psychotherapy (and psychotherapist) outcomes are good but largely stagnant

20th January 2015

I have been asked to write a chapter on the importance of obtaining regular feedback on client progress in a book on psychotherapist self-practice & self-reflection. This initial section (see below) of a draft of the chapter comments on the current state of psychotherapy itself: (Note the ideas in this …

Psychotherapy training workshops improve skills considerably better if they are linked to subsequent ongoing supervision

12th September 2012

Rinad Beidas & colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania published a paper earlier this year entitled "Training and consultation to promote implementation of an empirically supported treatment: a randomized trial." The abstract reads "OBJECTIVE: The study evaluated the efficacy of three training modalities and the impact of ongoing consultation after …

A quiet rant to group facilitators & would-be group facilitators

3rd October 2010

Should group facilitators & would-be group facilitators have personal experience of the skills they're teaching? Should swimming or driving instructors be able to swim or drive themselves? I'm sure it's possible to help someone learn to swim without being a swimmer oneself, but if you're an instructor you're likely to …

NICE guidance on promoting mental wellbeing at work

17th December 2009

There are several recent research studies I've come across that highlight the need for better working conditions. Magnusson Hanson & colleagues' research on "Psychosocial working conditions and depressive symptoms among Swedish employees" shows clear links between decision authority, conflict & support and the development of subsequent depressive symptoms, while Nyberg …

Recent research: half a dozen studies on cognitive therapy

20th November 2008

Here are half a dozen recent studies involving cognitive therapy (CBT). The first by Craigie et al explores the use of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Although, as one would expect, MBCT helped GAD sufferers, it was noteworthy that results "fall well short of outcomes …