CBT is an active, collaborative, solution-focussed form of therapy combining techniques that help us to confront and correct biases and problems in the ways we think and feel; leading us to independently pursue a more fulfilling and successful life.
The theory and process of CBT
The aim of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to develop more helpful thoughts and actions that can guide us towards happier and more fulfilling lives. CBT is a short-term therapy: it can last anywhere between 5 and 30 sessions over a period of 1 to 18 months, depending on the particular concerns and needs of the client.
The therapist works actively and collaboratively with them, helping them to identify maladaptive patterns of thoughts and behaviours through logic and experiment, and arming them with the skills and techniques to replace them.
In this way, the client gradually learns to become their own therapist, so that when they face difficult situations in the future once therapy has ended, they are able successfully to tackle them alone.
This is thought to be one of the reasons that CBT yields much lower relapse rates for a variety of concerns when compared to medication alone, and can be contrasted with traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, in which therapy can last for years and even decades. Where the Freudian assumption is that the therapist holds the ‘key’ to helping the client, CBT proposes that this power lies within the client themselves: the therapist’s role is merely to help them discover this.
With CBT clients can develop more helpful thoughts and actions
Although CBT therapists do not disregard entirely the causal mechanisms behind the client’s problems: the focus is very much on the here-and-now, on what is maintaining the issue: we cannot change our past, but we can change the way we deal with things in the present, and this is the best chance we have for shaping a more positive future.
So how does CBT actually tackle our cognitions and behaviours?
The theoretical model behind CBT holds that we all have a ‘cognitive triad’, which consists of our habitual thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. This influences how we interpret and evaluate what happens to us (cognition), how we feel about it (emotion), and how we respond (behaviour).
Sometimes our thoughts within this triad can be distorted, biased, or just plain erroneous. For example, common ‘cognitive biases’ in the depressed include:
Dichotomous thinking: Viewing everything as a binary (either entirely good, or entirely bad) with even the smallest problem or flaw rendering a situation hopeless
Overgeneralization: Extrapolating from one negative event to view everything as negative
Magnification or minimization: Inflating the negative details and ignoring or minimizing the positive details
Confirmation bias: Searching for or interpreting information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions
Pessimism bias: The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events occurring.
When the thoughts within our cognitive triad (and the more immediate ‘automatic thoughts’) are problematic, this can be upsetting (i.e. affect the way we feel) and lead to difficulties in how we live our lives and interact with others (i.e. affect the way we behave).
The role of the CBT therapist is therefore to help you to become more aware of your cognitions and how they may not be helpful, and develop the skills needed to modify them when they are distorted or not useful. Eventually, this becomes habitual and leads us towards a more realistic way of viewing the world without conscious effort. This is known as ‘cognitive restructuring’.
Habitual behaviours maintain the problem
Just as the way we think can maintain our problems, so can the way we behave. Commonly this is due to avoidance (either of actual situations or internal experiences such as feelings and memories). For example, if someone is struggling with social anxiety, they may shun situations in which they have to interact with new people, or a lot of people at once.
They may turn down social engagements, or stop going to work. This cuts them off from the possibility of positive experience in these situations (thus reducing their satisfaction and motivation), and they may be left home alone ruminating on their unhelpful thoughts, which can make them worse. It also takes away any opportunity to disprove the biases in their cognitive triad.
If you turn down social engagements because of thoughts like “I will make a fool of myself”, “Everyone will laugh at me” or “I will have nothing interesting to say”, there is no way to find out if these thoughts are true. CBT often sets ‘behavioural experiments’ for the client to engage in between therapy sessions (increasing in difficulty as therapy progresses and the client gains confidence).
In this situation for example the therapist may take the client through a series of relaxation techniques to combat the physical feelings of tension and nervousness that they feel when in social settings. They may then be encouraged to talk to someone new within the week, and write down their thoughts and feelings about this, what happened, and whether these elements matched. Often, the person will discover that their negative thoughts are not as realistic as they previously thought. It is this realisation which is an important foundation for change.
A very well researched subject
CBT is one of the most well researched forms of psychotherapy: there are over 400 published studies on cognitive behavioural interventions and NICE–the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence–recommends it in the UK as the treatment of choice for a wide variety of concerns.
In 2005, Aaron Beck (‘the Father of CBT’) and his team of researchers at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy analysed the results of 16 meta-analyses of CBT, covering almost 10,000 participants in 332 studies. They found that CBT was strongly effective for depression, generalised anxiety, panic and agoraphobia, social phobia, post-traumatic stress, and childhood depression and anxiety.
It was also found to be effective for relationship problems, anger, childhood somatic disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia and chronic pain. Most interestingly perhaps, they found that CBT is superior to antidepressants in the treatment of adult depression.
The House Partnership, 31st December 2014
RELATED CONTENT
Carol's take on CBT for Depression
Video
Carol Cattley describes her experiences of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for depression, and how it helped her to make positive changes in her own life, where previously she never thought possible.
Cognitive behavioural therapy has become one of the most popular forms of contemporary psychological therapy, rising into fashion in the latter 20th century in the 'cognitive revolution', overtaking the psychoanalytical practice championed by Freud.
The single most important thing you can do for stress
Video
"My pick for the single most effective treatment for managing stress is actually quite a simple one . . . change your thinking style." From Mike Evans, Professor of Family Medicine & Public Health, University of Toronto.
Evidence suggests that CBT cognitive behavioural therapy is at least as effective as medication for depression, and leads to lower relapse rates. This is because it gets to the heart of the 'vicious cycle' of negative thoughts, feelings and actions that depression can trap us in.
Antidepressants ~ chemical intervention or placebo?
Article
The chemical imbalance theory of depression came about by accident; a serendipitous discovery in the search for drugs to treat completely different disorders. How reliable is this theory of depression, and is this really what antidepressant medications are affecting?
Are we becoming more fearful in the UK? The question is answered by the Mental Health Foundation in their report, In The Face of Fear, with a clear 'yes'. The report presents evidence showing a consistent increase in anxiety over the past couple of decades.
In this short excerpt from a PBS documentary, behavioral scientist Dr Peter Whybrow, author of 'American Mania: When Too Much Is Not Enough', talks about the perils of a fast-paced, consumer-driven lifestyle and why it's not the key to happiness.
By encouraging clients to focus on achievements and goals, solution-focused therapy aims to help establish hope and resolutions to problems — with less attention paid to why the problems arose in the first place. The focus is on what is possible if positive changes are made.
Heart flu. A cold in the soul. 'Adjustment disorder'... all terms used in Japan as 'labels' for depression–but the fact they're used at all symbolises a revolution in Japanese culture. As recently as 10 years ago, the whole concept of depression carried a great stigma in Japan.
Is it possible to predict which marriages are likely to succeed by looking at the love present in courtship at the start? Leading US social psychologist and relationship researcher Professor Ted Huston has spent much of his professional life on this question.
The psychoanalytic theory that dominated the 20th century is being overtaken by therapies in which talking interventions for depression concentrate not on what has already happened, but on thinking about what will happen in the future in a positive way.
Mindfulness has been practiced as part of meditative exercises for thousands of years, becoming renowned for its calming function and its ability to improve mental and spiritual well-being. Modern psychological research is beginning to reveal that it is an effective form of therapy for anxiety.
Existential therapy is a psychotherapy heavily influenced by existential philosophy. It states that our inner conflicts are a reflection of our confrontation with the givens of existence: death, freedom, responsibility, isolation and meaninglessness.
It's popularly associated with peacefulness, calm, and stress reduction. But there's clear evidence that meditation also improves memory, increases awareness, empathy and compassion. These changes are revealed on brain scans.
Depression is almost as common as it is debilitating: one in five people will experience it in their lifetime and it is the leading cause of disability in the world. How does it develop, how does it differ from 'feeling low' and what therapies can help to alleviate it?
Sleep psychologist Shelby Harris discusses why insomniacs can't get to sleep, even when (they think) they've accumulated a massive sleep debt. Help for insomnia can come with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is shown to give longer-lasting results than sleeping pills.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is characterised by worries that something terrible will happen (obsessions) and a series of disruptive behaviours (compulsions) carried out, often ritualistically, to try to alleviate these anxieties. What causes it, and how can it be helped?
Professor Robert Sapolsky discusses the evolutionary origins and functions of stress and reveals just how dangerous prolonged exposure to stress can be in our modern lives. Mindfulness therapies can help individuals alter their responses to stressful event.
Mindfulness-based therapies encourage people to replace the distress and avoidance associated with obsessions with a non-judgemental awareness and acceptance of their inner mental state. This is proving effective even in those who have been not been helped by other treatments.
A panel of scientists discusses the evolutionary basis for fear, how these responses can be learned, and how they inform superstition, religious practice and cultural tradition.
What is it about tea that makes it the drink of choice for the stressed British public? Its chemical content? Its heat? The ritual of preparing it? Or are we simply subject to placebo effects whereby believing tea will de-stress us makes this outcome a reality?
Animation director and illustrator Steve May created this great little video about anger as one of several shorts inspired by the experiences of real teens dealing with real issues.
The Art of Psychotherapy ~ Interview with Irvin Yalom
Video
Existential psychotherapist, Dr Irvin Yalom, discusses the importance of the client being treated as an equal by their therapist and of their working together. He suggests that self-revelation on the part of the therapist is also important.
Journalist Phillip Weiss, editor of Mondoweiss, discusses the pressures in modern marriage, especially to do with sex. And how most most studies show, in the US at least, that 25% of married men are unfaithful, and 15% of women.
Steve Hayes, the main force behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is himself a panic attack sufferer in recovery. Panic responds very well to behavioural therapies such as CBT, especially when combined with mindfulness approaches.
Elizabeth Gilbert-author of Eat, Pray, Love-talks about Schopenhauer's theory about intimacy and relationships and why people are like porcupines. Relationship counselling provides a safe space in which to work through difficulties together.
New psychology research has used brain scans, EEG, and measured antibody production, to reveal the biological processes that underlie the positive changes that people experience after practicing mindfulness meditation as part of psychological therapy.
Our close relationships can bring us much joy and fulfilment. However, at some point we will all experience difficulties in our interactions with family, friends, or lovers. Relationship counselling provides a safe space in which to work through difficulties together.
A thoughtful piece as always from Stephen Fry, discussing his experience of depression. Fry was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 1995 after suffering a nervous breakdown.
Steve Blacknell, 55, used to sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night to eat in secret. He has been recovering from bulimia for 20 years. At The House, our therapists and counsellors are experienced in helping people overcome issues with food and eating.
House Therapists are trained in a variety of approaches, and can integrate them to tailor the therapeutic experience to your particular needs and concerns. Rather than trying to match the client to a therapy, we prefer to match therapies to the client.
Schema therapy is an integrated psychological therapy, combining elements from a variety of therapies including CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It aims to challenge and correct some of the deepest maladaptive beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the most popular form of therapy for a range of issues that fall under the umbrella term 'anxiety', using a solution-focused, 'here and now' approach to facilitate recovery. We take a look at what this means and at the evidence in its favour.
By tackling the way we think about ourselves, our bodies, and food, and using this to inform changes in our eating behaviours, CBT provides a powerful method for breaking free from the powerful grip of anxiety, guilt and shame that can control our relationship with food.
It has long been known that people's varying levels of emotionality lead to different responses in behaviour, but a group of psychologists in America have found an intriguing relationship between smile intensity in yearbook photos and subsequent marital harmony.
In a study that asked 515 people why they entered into sex with someone, 50% of women and 52% of men said that they hoped to trigger a longer relationship.
TV has been blamed for a range of problems in children and adolescents including poor body image and food issues. By studying a rural population in Fiji with only recent access to TV, and tracking attitudes to weight and shape, researchers have spotted the first signs of problem eating.
We all feel a little anxious in social situations sometimes, but Social Anxiety can be extremely uncomfortable and even debilitating, limiting people's potential and even causing them to avoid many social situations. We explore how Counselling can help with this.
It can feel like there are any number of things that can come problematic about our relationship with food: not eating 'enough' of it, eating 'too much' of it, using it as an emotional crutch... Psychotherapy can offer a solution-focused way of tackling these issues.
'Counselling' and 'Counselling Psychology' are not synonymous terms, though they do share elements of their history. Here we explore how Counselling Psychology is in many ways superior, as it brings a scientific evidence base to the art of counselling.
As it can affect they way we think, feel, behave and relate to others, depression can seem like an impossible challenge to work through alone. Fortunately, Counselling Psychologists at The House are brilliantly positioned to be able to tackle these problems with you.
Mindfulness, though it draws influence from ancient Buddhist tradition, is fast becoming an essential part of a range of non-religious psychological therapies and helping people with a wide variety of physical and emotional concerns.
In the current economic climate - when job security is at an all time low - many people are finding that their best course of action when ill is going to work anyway... but what are the costs not only to the economy, but more importantly to our wellbeing?
A man's problems with his wife keep him awake during a whole night. An animation about insomnia, by Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, promoting the short story 'Night Thoughts' by Helen Simpson, for Granta magazine's issue on feminism.
This powerful film by documentary filmmaker Martin Hampton introduces us to the lives of four people struggling with compulsive hoarding; each vignette more uncomfortable that the last.
Levni Yilmazis is an independent film-maker, artist and publisher. In this short animation he provides a wry how-to guide for breaking up . . . in 64 easy steps!
Social anxiety has been part of Jo's life since childhood. In this painful story she describes its pernicious effect and the vicious cycle between feelings of anxiety and sadness. But the story has a happy ending as Jo eventually discovers therapy.
Stress, at an appropriate level and duration, can be a positive influence in the workplace. However, when stressful influences are poorly managed, they can cause us to feel like we are 'treading water'. How can we use workplace pressure to our advantage?
Professor Mark Williams, co-developer of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and research fellow at Oxford University, discusses the science behind why mindfulness works, in calming stress and preventing depression from recurring.
Our psychological problems are shaped by our socio-cultural environment. In Korea, what we might refer to as 'problem anger' is known as 'fire sickness' and is seemingly caused by emotional suppression for the good of the collectivist culture
Systemic therapy looks at people not as isolated individuals, but as parts of various relationships and networks (romantic, familial, platonic, professional etc), and deals with the interactions and dynamics of these groups to improve the wellbeing of its members.
Some relationships last a lifetime, where others are intense but short-lived. Psychology research is revealing the types of love unique to each kind of union, and the elements that may re-ignite a fading spark of attraction.
A short animation on how OCD feels to Danish artist, Joaquim Nielsen. One in fifty adults experience obsessive-compulsive behavior during their lives. While OCD can be a serious social disabling condition, it has also become a source of inspiration for some artists.
This film by the charity OCD-UK offers insight into the problems that people with OCD face, and how they experience the condition. OCD responds very well to a combination of CBT cognitive behavioral and mindfulness therapies.
CBT has been consistently shown to aid recovery from OCD in over three quarters of people who undertake it by encouraging them to change the way they think through 'cognitive restructuring', and use this to change the way they behave through 'cognitive management'.
A short video from animator Kelly Bailey on what it's like to live with panic and agoraphobia, containing recorded testimony of real people who have struggled with and overcome these fears.
The focus of mindfulness-based therapy is upon recognising and accepting each moment in the present instead of jumping to hasty and often damaging reactions. This is proving to be greatly beneficial to improving our relationships with others.
Professor Paul Salkovskis, a clinical psychologist and director of the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, discusses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And Karen reveals how this form of therapy helped her overcome OCD.
Sleep brings a range of benefits to our minds, physical health, and well-being, and insomnia can be extremely disruptive to our lives and functioning. Insomnia and long term, chronic sleeplessness, can be extremely disruptive to our lives and functioning, so what can we do to tackle it?
Depression is three times more common following a heart attack: as many as one in three survivors qualify for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Research is beginning to reveal which parts of CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT may be most helpful to these patients.
Cutural and religious rituals and many of the behaviours of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) show striking similarities: washing, checking, repetition... is OCD a manifestation of a deep human need that has spun out of control?
Kadam Morten Clausen, resident teacher at the Kadampa Meditation Centre in New York, discusses how stress is all about our perceptions of others and of the world. Mindfulness practices, as encouraged at The House Partnership, can help you find a path to a life free of stress.
Iain and Susan are struggling to work out why their sex life has ground to a halt. A short promotional film for the BBC animated documentary: Wonderland: The Trouble With Love and Sex.
Levni Yilmazis is an independent film-maker, artist and publisher. This is his ironic take on the less-than-helpful advice some people give when you're experiencing depression.
Though it has been proposed that food issues such as extreme dieting, anorexia and bulimia are on the rise and influenced by media pressures, analysis of texts about and by many of history's key figures suggests that these problems have been around for centuries.
A clip from the BBC's Weird Nature series showing how Vervet Monkeys in the Caribbean have taken to stealing cocktails from people on the beach. Studies show that they have the same percentage of teetotal and alcoholic individuals as the human population.
Carol Cattley describes her experiences of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for depression, and how it helped her to make positive changes in her own life, where previously she never thought possible.
Cognitive behavioural therapy has become one of the most popular forms of contemporary psychological therapy, rising into fashion in the latter 20th century in the 'cognitive revolution', overtaking the psychoanalytical practice championed by Freud.
The single most important thing you can do for stress
Video
"My pick for the single most effective treatment for managing stress is actually quite a simple one . . . change your thinking style." From Mike Evans, Professor of Family Medicine & Public Health, University of Toronto.
Evidence suggests that CBT cognitive behavioural therapy is at least as effective as medication for depression, and leads to lower relapse rates. This is because it gets to the heart of the 'vicious cycle' of negative thoughts, feelings and actions that depression can trap us in.
Antidepressants ~ chemical intervention or placebo?
Article
The chemical imbalance theory of depression came about by accident; a serendipitous discovery in the search for drugs to treat completely different disorders. How reliable is this theory of depression, and is this really what antidepressant medications are affecting?
Are we becoming more fearful in the UK? The question is answered by the Mental Health Foundation in their report, In The Face of Fear, with a clear 'yes'. The report presents evidence showing a consistent increase in anxiety over the past couple of decades.
In this short excerpt from a PBS documentary, behavioral scientist Dr Peter Whybrow, author of 'American Mania: When Too Much Is Not Enough', talks about the perils of a fast-paced, consumer-driven lifestyle and why it's not the key to happiness.
By encouraging clients to focus on achievements and goals, solution-focused therapy aims to help establish hope and resolutions to problems — with less attention paid to why the problems arose in the first place. The focus is on what is possible if positive changes are made.
Heart flu. A cold in the soul. 'Adjustment disorder'... all terms used in Japan as 'labels' for depression–but the fact they're used at all symbolises a revolution in Japanese culture. As recently as 10 years ago, the whole concept of depression carried a great stigma in Japan.
Is it possible to predict which marriages are likely to succeed by looking at the love present in courtship at the start? Leading US social psychologist and relationship researcher Professor Ted Huston has spent much of his professional life on this question.
The psychoanalytic theory that dominated the 20th century is being overtaken by therapies in which talking interventions for depression concentrate not on what has already happened, but on thinking about what will happen in the future in a positive way.
Mindfulness has been practiced as part of meditative exercises for thousands of years, becoming renowned for its calming function and its ability to improve mental and spiritual well-being. Modern psychological research is beginning to reveal that it is an effective form of therapy for anxiety.
Existential therapy is a psychotherapy heavily influenced by existential philosophy. It states that our inner conflicts are a reflection of our confrontation with the givens of existence: death, freedom, responsibility, isolation and meaninglessness.
It's popularly associated with peacefulness, calm, and stress reduction. But there's clear evidence that meditation also improves memory, increases awareness, empathy and compassion. These changes are revealed on brain scans.
Depression is almost as common as it is debilitating: one in five people will experience it in their lifetime and it is the leading cause of disability in the world. How does it develop, how does it differ from 'feeling low' and what therapies can help to alleviate it?
Sleep psychologist Shelby Harris discusses why insomniacs can't get to sleep, even when (they think) they've accumulated a massive sleep debt. Help for insomnia can come with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is shown to give longer-lasting results than sleeping pills.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is characterised by worries that something terrible will happen (obsessions) and a series of disruptive behaviours (compulsions) carried out, often ritualistically, to try to alleviate these anxieties. What causes it, and how can it be helped?
Professor Robert Sapolsky discusses the evolutionary origins and functions of stress and reveals just how dangerous prolonged exposure to stress can be in our modern lives. Mindfulness therapies can help individuals alter their responses to stressful event.
Mindfulness-based therapies encourage people to replace the distress and avoidance associated with obsessions with a non-judgemental awareness and acceptance of their inner mental state. This is proving effective even in those who have been not been helped by other treatments.
A panel of scientists discusses the evolutionary basis for fear, how these responses can be learned, and how they inform superstition, religious practice and cultural tradition.
What is it about tea that makes it the drink of choice for the stressed British public? Its chemical content? Its heat? The ritual of preparing it? Or are we simply subject to placebo effects whereby believing tea will de-stress us makes this outcome a reality?
Animation director and illustrator Steve May created this great little video about anger as one of several shorts inspired by the experiences of real teens dealing with real issues.
The Art of Psychotherapy ~ Interview with Irvin Yalom
Video
Existential psychotherapist, Dr Irvin Yalom, discusses the importance of the client being treated as an equal by their therapist and of their working together. He suggests that self-revelation on the part of the therapist is also important.
Journalist Phillip Weiss, editor of Mondoweiss, discusses the pressures in modern marriage, especially to do with sex. And how most most studies show, in the US at least, that 25% of married men are unfaithful, and 15% of women.
Steve Hayes, the main force behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is himself a panic attack sufferer in recovery. Panic responds very well to behavioural therapies such as CBT, especially when combined with mindfulness approaches.
Elizabeth Gilbert-author of Eat, Pray, Love-talks about Schopenhauer's theory about intimacy and relationships and why people are like porcupines. Relationship counselling provides a safe space in which to work through difficulties together.
New psychology research has used brain scans, EEG, and measured antibody production, to reveal the biological processes that underlie the positive changes that people experience after practicing mindfulness meditation as part of psychological therapy.
Our close relationships can bring us much joy and fulfilment. However, at some point we will all experience difficulties in our interactions with family, friends, or lovers. Relationship counselling provides a safe space in which to work through difficulties together.
A thoughtful piece as always from Stephen Fry, discussing his experience of depression. Fry was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 1995 after suffering a nervous breakdown.
Steve Blacknell, 55, used to sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night to eat in secret. He has been recovering from bulimia for 20 years. At The House, our therapists and counsellors are experienced in helping people overcome issues with food and eating.
House Therapists are trained in a variety of approaches, and can integrate them to tailor the therapeutic experience to your particular needs and concerns. Rather than trying to match the client to a therapy, we prefer to match therapies to the client.
Schema therapy is an integrated psychological therapy, combining elements from a variety of therapies including CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It aims to challenge and correct some of the deepest maladaptive beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the most popular form of therapy for a range of issues that fall under the umbrella term 'anxiety', using a solution-focused, 'here and now' approach to facilitate recovery. We take a look at what this means and at the evidence in its favour.
By tackling the way we think about ourselves, our bodies, and food, and using this to inform changes in our eating behaviours, CBT provides a powerful method for breaking free from the powerful grip of anxiety, guilt and shame that can control our relationship with food.
It has long been known that people's varying levels of emotionality lead to different responses in behaviour, but a group of psychologists in America have found an intriguing relationship between smile intensity in yearbook photos and subsequent marital harmony.
In a study that asked 515 people why they entered into sex with someone, 50% of women and 52% of men said that they hoped to trigger a longer relationship.
TV has been blamed for a range of problems in children and adolescents including poor body image and food issues. By studying a rural population in Fiji with only recent access to TV, and tracking attitudes to weight and shape, researchers have spotted the first signs of problem eating.
We all feel a little anxious in social situations sometimes, but Social Anxiety can be extremely uncomfortable and even debilitating, limiting people's potential and even causing them to avoid many social situations. We explore how Counselling can help with this.
It can feel like there are any number of things that can come problematic about our relationship with food: not eating 'enough' of it, eating 'too much' of it, using it as an emotional crutch... Psychotherapy can offer a solution-focused way of tackling these issues.
'Counselling' and 'Counselling Psychology' are not synonymous terms, though they do share elements of their history. Here we explore how Counselling Psychology is in many ways superior, as it brings a scientific evidence base to the art of counselling.
As it can affect they way we think, feel, behave and relate to others, depression can seem like an impossible challenge to work through alone. Fortunately, Counselling Psychologists at The House are brilliantly positioned to be able to tackle these problems with you.
Mindfulness, though it draws influence from ancient Buddhist tradition, is fast becoming an essential part of a range of non-religious psychological therapies and helping people with a wide variety of physical and emotional concerns.
In the current economic climate - when job security is at an all time low - many people are finding that their best course of action when ill is going to work anyway... but what are the costs not only to the economy, but more importantly to our wellbeing?
A man's problems with his wife keep him awake during a whole night. An animation about insomnia, by Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, promoting the short story 'Night Thoughts' by Helen Simpson, for Granta magazine's issue on feminism.
This powerful film by documentary filmmaker Martin Hampton introduces us to the lives of four people struggling with compulsive hoarding; each vignette more uncomfortable that the last.
Levni Yilmazis is an independent film-maker, artist and publisher. In this short animation he provides a wry how-to guide for breaking up . . . in 64 easy steps!
Social anxiety has been part of Jo's life since childhood. In this painful story she describes its pernicious effect and the vicious cycle between feelings of anxiety and sadness. But the story has a happy ending as Jo eventually discovers therapy.
Stress, at an appropriate level and duration, can be a positive influence in the workplace. However, when stressful influences are poorly managed, they can cause us to feel like we are 'treading water'. How can we use workplace pressure to our advantage?
Professor Mark Williams, co-developer of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and research fellow at Oxford University, discusses the science behind why mindfulness works, in calming stress and preventing depression from recurring.
Our psychological problems are shaped by our socio-cultural environment. In Korea, what we might refer to as 'problem anger' is known as 'fire sickness' and is seemingly caused by emotional suppression for the good of the collectivist culture
Systemic therapy looks at people not as isolated individuals, but as parts of various relationships and networks (romantic, familial, platonic, professional etc), and deals with the interactions and dynamics of these groups to improve the wellbeing of its members.
Some relationships last a lifetime, where others are intense but short-lived. Psychology research is revealing the types of love unique to each kind of union, and the elements that may re-ignite a fading spark of attraction.
A short animation on how OCD feels to Danish artist, Joaquim Nielsen. One in fifty adults experience obsessive-compulsive behavior during their lives. While OCD can be a serious social disabling condition, it has also become a source of inspiration for some artists.
This film by the charity OCD-UK offers insight into the problems that people with OCD face, and how they experience the condition. OCD responds very well to a combination of CBT cognitive behavioral and mindfulness therapies.
CBT has been consistently shown to aid recovery from OCD in over three quarters of people who undertake it by encouraging them to change the way they think through 'cognitive restructuring', and use this to change the way they behave through 'cognitive management'.
A short video from animator Kelly Bailey on what it's like to live with panic and agoraphobia, containing recorded testimony of real people who have struggled with and overcome these fears.
The focus of mindfulness-based therapy is upon recognising and accepting each moment in the present instead of jumping to hasty and often damaging reactions. This is proving to be greatly beneficial to improving our relationships with others.
Professor Paul Salkovskis, a clinical psychologist and director of the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, discusses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And Karen reveals how this form of therapy helped her overcome OCD.
Sleep brings a range of benefits to our minds, physical health, and well-being, and insomnia can be extremely disruptive to our lives and functioning. Insomnia and long term, chronic sleeplessness, can be extremely disruptive to our lives and functioning, so what can we do to tackle it?
Depression is three times more common following a heart attack: as many as one in three survivors qualify for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Research is beginning to reveal which parts of CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT may be most helpful to these patients.
Cutural and religious rituals and many of the behaviours of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) show striking similarities: washing, checking, repetition... is OCD a manifestation of a deep human need that has spun out of control?
Kadam Morten Clausen, resident teacher at the Kadampa Meditation Centre in New York, discusses how stress is all about our perceptions of others and of the world. Mindfulness practices, as encouraged at The House Partnership, can help you find a path to a life free of stress.
Iain and Susan are struggling to work out why their sex life has ground to a halt. A short promotional film for the BBC animated documentary: Wonderland: The Trouble With Love and Sex.
Levni Yilmazis is an independent film-maker, artist and publisher. This is his ironic take on the less-than-helpful advice some people give when you're experiencing depression.
Though it has been proposed that food issues such as extreme dieting, anorexia and bulimia are on the rise and influenced by media pressures, analysis of texts about and by many of history's key figures suggests that these problems have been around for centuries.
A clip from the BBC's Weird Nature series showing how Vervet Monkeys in the Caribbean have taken to stealing cocktails from people on the beach. Studies show that they have the same percentage of teetotal and alcoholic individuals as the human population.
