Emotion-focused and narrative therapies
3rd June 2013
"Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, reexperience it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts." Salman Rushdie Tomorrow our little East of …
Effective weight loss: a wake-up call and a personal story
31st May 2013
I was talking to an old friend recently and I remarked on how well he was looking. He said he had lost two stone in weight and his waist circumference had gone down from 42 to 34 inches. Wow! I was very interested to hear how he had done it …
New NICE guidance on the recognition, assessment and treatment of social anxiety disorder (2nd post)
30th May 2013
I wrote an initial blog post yesterday on this month's new NICE guideline on "Social anxiety disorder: recognition, assessment and treatment". In today's post I would like to focus more on the guideline's very interesting treatment recommendations. Fascinatingly this NICE guidance comes down fair & square on the side of …
New NICE guidance on the recognition, assessment and treatment of social anxiety disorder (1st post)
29th May 2013
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) have just published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on "Social anxiety disorder: recognition, assessment and treatment". They state: "This clinical guideline offers evidence-based advice on the recognition, assessment and treatment of social anxiety disorder in children and young people (from school …
New NICE guidance on promoting physical activity using brief advice
15th May 2013
This month the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on "Physical advice: brief advice for adults in primary care". NICE state "The guidance is for ... anyone ... whose remit includes offering lifestyle advice. Examples include: exercise professionals, GPs, health trainers, health …
BABCP spring meeting: CBASP & chronic depression, therapist support, mindfulness & health anxiety, and intrusions & control
5th May 2013
In the last few days I have written a series of posts about the BABCP Spring Conference & Workshops in Belfast - the most recent being "BABCP spring meeting: Arnoud Arntz on schema therapy for personality disorders". Besides Arntz's presentations, the two highlights of this Belfast meeting for me were …
BABCP spring meeting: Arnoud Arntz on schema therapy for personality disorders (3rd post)
4th May 2013
I wrote yesterday giving the official description of Arnoud Arntz's workshop in Belfast and explaining that getting an update on his work was the major reason I travelled to the BABCP Spring Conference & Workshops. So how was it actually being there? It was definitely worthwhile. When I walked into …
BABCP spring meeting: Arnoud Arntz on schema therapy for personality disorders (2nd post)
3rd May 2013
I have already written a brief introductory description of the two day British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Spring Workshops and Conference in Belfast last month. I reported that I had been to Arnoud Arntz's workshop on Schema-Focused Therapy. I have been to several training days with Arnoud …
Recent research: articles from April journals
1st May 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 nearly 19,600 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …
C25K - couch to 5 km: NHS web resources for getting "just about anyone off the couch and running 5 km in 9 weeks"
25th April 2013
Well here's a good example of being taught by our patients. I've had two or three people, who come to see me, singing the praises of the C25K NHS website. The site states that "Our C25K plan is designed to get just about anyone off the couch and running 5km …