“My voices are just part of me, they don’t own me”: a qualitative investigation of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy groups for people experiencing psychosis [paper]

Our qualitative study of the experiences of people with psychosis who engaged in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy groups to support their recovery has just been published online in the journal Psychosis.  The qualitative study was led by Dr Sally Bloy, who interviewed people participating in ACT for Life groups, meeting them after the group program …

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“Back to basics, and then beyond”: a post-CBT future… to process based therapy?

What is the future of CBT?   For two leading researchers, the future could be that science and practice goes beyond the “alphabet soup” of branded therapies, to process based CBT. Steven Hayes and Stefan Hofmann have shared a fascinating video, discussing their views on the third wave, process based CBT, and the future of evidence-based …

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So long to SUDs – Exposure is not about fear reduction… it’s about new learning and flexibility

Exposure is one of the most powerful and effective methods therapists have to help clients whose lives are restricted by struggles with fear and anxiety. It is a classic method of behaviour therapy, with over 40 years of research to support its use. Whatever approach to working with cognitions and inner experiences a cognitive-behavioural therapist …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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