Creating courageous CBT therapists: how to work with therapist fears about using exposure therapy

Despite a wealth of evidence that it is one of the most effective ways to help people with anxiety disorders, exposure therapy remains underused by clinicians.  As discussed in previous posts, clinicians’ attitudes and practices about exposure are influenced both by their knowledge about the approach and their openness to witnessing client discomfort (and experiencing …

Continue reading ‘Creating courageous CBT therapists: how to work with therapist fears about using exposure therapy’ »

Share

Can Relational Frame Theory help us to understand delusions?

How can we understand delusional beliefs in behavioural terms? A recent paper published in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science by Corinna Stewart, Ian Stewart and Sean Hughes presents a “call to action” for taking a natural science approach to discerning persecutory delusions, by outlining the directions that contemporary contextual research on language and cognition …

Continue reading ‘Can Relational Frame Theory help us to understand delusions?’ »

Share

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Recovery: a promising low-intensity intervention for people with psychosis

Can mindfulness and acceptance-based psychological approaches help people with psychosis in their personal recovery?  Is it possible to “just notice” the frightening and preoccupying experiences associated with psychosis, such as paranoia, voices, stigmatising thoughts and unusual perceptions? How can psychological therapists help people with serious mental illness to improve their wellbeing and find meaning and …

Continue reading ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Recovery: a promising low-intensity intervention for people with psychosis’ »

Share

Is the functional analysis of behaviour important?

Is it important to understand behaviour in context? Psychology has a myriad of models about understanding humans and their behaviour. For the person interested in finding ways to help people change, many of these models have a big gap: they don’t point to what you can actually do to influence behaviour. Many (?most) psychological models …

Continue reading ‘Is the functional analysis of behaviour important?’ »

Share

ACT for PTSD in Early Psychosis: A Case Series – paper published

My Danish colleague, Jens Einar Jansen, has published a paper with me, where we argue that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) shows promise in helping people recovering from a first episode of psychosis who have trauma symptoms (using a case series): Jansen, J.E., & Morris, E.M.J. 2016. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder …

Continue reading ‘ACT for PTSD in Early Psychosis: A Case Series – paper published’ »

Share

Building a life that is rich, fulfilling and fun – Joe Oliver on “ACTivate Your Life”

Joe Oliver, co-author of ACTivate Your Life, was recently interviewed on the Open Forwards podcast. The interview was hosted by Jim Lucas (founder and managing director of Open Forwards, a consultancy based in Birmingham, UK). In the interview Joe talks about what attracted him to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a model: the empirical …

Continue reading ‘Building a life that is rich, fulfilling and fun – Joe Oliver on “ACTivate Your Life”’ »

Share

clinical RFT is here, and now – A review of “Mastering the Clinical Conversation”

“Mastering the Clinical Conversation: Language as Intervention” was published in late 2015 by Guilford Press. The book’s authors, Matt Villatte, Jennifer Villatte, and Steven Hayes, have produced, in my opinion, the first clinical Relational Frame Theory (RFT) manual that is both immediately useful to clinicians, and repays with deeper study and repeated readings. The manual …

Continue reading ‘clinical RFT is here, and now – A review of “Mastering the Clinical Conversation”’ »

Share

How to run Acceptance and Commitment Therapy groups for people with psychosis – paper published

Excellent to have an “in practice” paper published in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science: Butler, L., Johns, L.C., Byrne, M., Joseph, C., O’Donoghue, E., Jolley, S., Morris, E.M. and Oliver, J.E., 2015. Running acceptance and commitment therapy groups for psychosis in community settings. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Abstract: In this paper, we discuss …

Continue reading ‘How to run Acceptance and Commitment Therapy groups for people with psychosis – paper published’ »

Share

LinkFest! Top 10 Links – December 2015

The top ten most-clicked links from my Twitter account in December 2015: 1] Evaluations of self-referential thoughts and their association with components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy http://j.mp/1lKjE2g ACT-consistent variables were associated with thought evaluations (believability, discomfort & willingness) rather than thought content; believability associated with greater psychological inflexibility and distress; believability of negative thoughts …

Continue reading ‘LinkFest! Top 10 Links – December 2015’ »

Share

Wearing It Differently: Talking about ACT for psychosis, clinical psychology, and career choices

I recently had the privilege of being interviewed for “We All Wear It Differently”, a podcast for early career psychologists. Amy Felman, the enthusiastic host, created the podcast so that psychologists starting their careers could learn from experienced colleagues about the choices and opportunities that shaped their working lives. The podcast features a collection of …

Continue reading ‘Wearing It Differently: Talking about ACT for psychosis, clinical psychology, and career choices’ »

Share