Posts tagged with 'psychotherapy'
The Ben Lui group (second post): how to know when to change direction on a walk or in treatment for psychological difficulties!
16th June 2009
A couple of lines from the Bruce Springsteen song "Hungry heart" kept going through my head - "Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going." Something was wrong. I couldn't work out where I'd got to on my map. …
Recent research: six papers relevant to psychotherapy
28th May 2009
Here are six studies relevant to improving psychotherapy outcomes. Brewin et al report on using imagery-based interventions to help people with depressioin. Lydiard et al highlight the importance of sleep-related disturbances as a treatment target in PTSD. McCrady and colleagues show that working with couples rather than just individuals seems …
Recent research: six papers on helping children & adolescents
21st May 2009
Here are half a dozen papers on helping kids and adolescents. The Fuligni et al paper found that adolescents experiencing frequent interpersonal stresses tended to have increased levels of C-reactive protein, " ... an inflammatory marker that is a key indicator of cardiovascular risk ... ". Jackson et al showed …
Recent research: three psychotherapy papers that get me thinking
30th April 2009
Just as there were research papers on depression that stood out and got me thinking last month, so too there were particular papers on psychotherapy that I found more interesting than others. David Clark and colleagues have developed a very successful CBT treatment programme for social anxiety disorder. When clients …
Self disclosure by health professionals
18th January 2009
Blogging about my mum's illness and my reactions to it led me to think again about self disclosure by health professionals. Our job is to be helpful for our clients - it's what we're about. Self disclosure by health professionals is a mixed bag. It can sometimes be helpful and …
Recent research: six studies on depression – bereavement, pregnancy, bipolar disorder, suicide, & stress in hospital staff
11th December 2008
Five of these six studies are from last month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Kendler et al discuss the many similarities and only occasional differences between bereavement-related and other life event-related depression - an issue explored further in Maj's editorial. Li et al show that depression in pregnancy (exacerbated further by …
Recent research: half a dozen depression & anxiety papers on CBT, telephones, exercise, relaxation, prevention and more
2nd October 2008
Here are half a dozen recent papers on aspects of depression and anxiety. They include an interesting overview on brain-psychology connections by Aaron Beck, one of the originators of CBT; a meta-analysis of studies on psychotherapy delivered by phone, internet & videoconferencing; details of a free database of studies on …
Draft SIGN non-pharmacological depression treatments guideline, 8th post: therapeutic alliance in the treatment of depression
25th September 2008
There was some discussion at the SIGN "Non-pharmacological management of depression" seminar about the possible importance of the therapeutic alliance in depression treatment. Professor Kevin Power said that SIGN had not found any good research that threw light on this issue. This is somewhat surprising because there is a fair …
Draft SIGN non-pharmacological depression treatments guideline, 7th post: effectiveness of psychological therapies 2
24th September 2008
This is the 7th blog post in a series reviewing the recent Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network's (SIGN) draft guideline for "Non-pharmacological management of depression". I gave more background details in the first post of the series. This post covers the third session of the guideline presentation seminar. The session was …
Conflict & disagreement, in and out of therapy
27th February 2008
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Franklin Jones Conflict and disagreement aren't meant to be easy. Human beings are social animals that mostly need to get along with those around them in order to survive. As hunter-gatherers, our ability …