In Fear of coffee I mentioned the renowned American CBT therapist, Christine Padesky. One of the recurring themes in her work has been to counter the notion that CBT is just about providing helpless patients with techniques for solving their problems, by emphasizing that patients always come to therapy with capabilities and strengths of their very own.
Posts Tagged ‘psychology’
Strengths
Posted in For therapists, Review, Techniques, tagged CBT, counseling, counselling, evidence, feelings, happiness, mental health, mental illness, positive psychology, psychology, psychotherapy on August 6, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Rust
Posted in For patients, Review, tagged America, burnout, civilization, DSM, mental health, mental illness, police, psychology, reality, relationships, Russia, stress on October 31, 2011 | 1 Comment »
I lifted the lid of the photocopier only to find a page already there, as you do. On the page was a graph illustrating the relationship between pressure and ability to cope, and the unusual word rustout. Under pressure to copy something else, I coped by binning it.
Parenting
Posted in For therapists, tagged BABCP, CBT, mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychology, psychotherapy, reality, therapy, training, UKCP on October 27, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Parents never really understand, do they? They just go about their business. But anything could happen. It’s as if they don’t realize how important they are. And then, later, it’s as if they don’t realize how unimportant they are.
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Cockroaches
Posted in Carnival, For patients, For therapists, Review, UK, tagged mental health, mental illness, NHS, NICE, psychiatry, psychology on June 27, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Arriving late at night, exhausted after a long journey, you find your hotel room smells of vomit and is crawling with cockroaches. In the morning you check out early and complain, but the concierge only shrugs and gives you a customer satisfaction questionnaire. Ticking boxes to questions like, “Was your room number easy to read?” and “Did the bath have a plughole?” you realize you have been forced to give the hotel a 95% satisfaction rating, squeezing your complaints on to the one line allowed for “Other remarks” at the bottom.
Investment
Posted in For patients, For therapists, Review, Techniques, tagged Carl Rogers, case study, diagnosis, emotion, feelings, mental health, mental illness, psychology, psychotherapy, therapy on June 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
If you’re a therapist, how much of yourself do you invest in a session with a patient who’s hard to reach?
If you’re a patient, how much effort does your therapist make to understand what it’s like to be you?
Timbuctoo
Posted in For patients, Research, Review, tagged philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, reality, science, therapy on May 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Where is Timbuctoo, I wonder, that opulent city of legend, it’s shaded squares alight with the vivid yellow blossom of a thousand Jacaranda trees? In far away China, I suppose. But how shall I convince you? Perhaps I will take you on a journey of discovery.
Pals
Posted in CBT, For therapists, Research, Review, tagged evidence, mental health, mental illness, peer review, psychology, psychotherapy, Research, science, therapy on February 20, 2011 | 2 Comments »
It seems strange to think that we are all hurtling through space on this big chunk of rock we call Earth. It’s OK when immersed in a science fiction story and disbelief is suspended, but for real? Weird.
Yet it’s the accepted view of things. Scientists tell us that it is so.
Paradigm
Posted in CBT, For patients, Review, Techniques, tagged CBT, diagnosis, emotion, evidence, feelings, mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, recovery, relationships, schizophrenia, therapy, training on January 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The wilful narrowness of much academic training for mental health professionals never ceases to astonish me.
Its worst effect is that those professionals who have the most impressive qualifications and titles can turn out to be be the least skilled treatment providers, which makes it very difficult for patients who are serious about recovery to find a competent therapist.
Edges
Posted in disorder, For patients, For therapists, Review, tagged diagnosis, mental health, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, recovery on November 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »
At the edge of a state of mental illness, there is a boundary with normality. But where are the edges? These days we see one of the edges of mental illness becoming clearer, and another one becoming fuzzier. Strangely, the clear one is easier to lose sight of than the fuzzy one.
Chunky sauce
Posted in For patients, For therapists, Research, tagged evidence, marketing, psychology, science on October 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Marketing pioneers, driven by the need to succeed in competitive markets, are years ahead of most psychologists when it comes to understanding some important aspects human behaviour, because all that drives most psychologists is the need to impress other psychologists. As an illustration of this, consider chunky tomato sauce.
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