CBT

Did you know that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem in any year.? Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT is a common type of mental health counseling (psychotherapy).CBT helps you become aware of negative thoughts, so you can view  situations that may be difficult to you more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way. Cognitive behavioral therapy can be a very helpful tool in treating mental disorders or illnesses, such as anxiety or depression. It can be an effective tool to help anyone learn how to better manage stressful life situations. and phobias. CBT techniques can be a very effective tool when used in conjunction with nutrition and diet advice to help tackle underlying issues that may have arisen for what ever reason. It is a non judgmental technique and client driven it’s key elements are emotion thoughts behaviour and physical sensation. I use basic CBT techniques along side nutrition and weight management.  

3rd Wave CBT Therapy

In the last 15 years 3rd Wave CBT has become one of the most powerful therapeutic developments. There are certain themes that bind different therapeutic approaches together under the heading of “3rd Wave” and which also go some way towards explaining its growing popularity. 3rd Wave has an integrative effect on the practice of CBT by drawing on a range of strategies and ideas that derive from other traditions. The Buddhist Mindfulness tradition is the most obvious but not the only one. Approaches as diverse as Gestalt Psychotherapy and Radical Behaviourism have found a place within 3rd Wave approaches.

Mindfulness can regulate your emotions and give purpose to your life and a freedom of choice. Mindfulness provides the key linking theme within the Certificate in 3rd Wave CBT. The focus on attention and non-judgemental acceptance rather than avoidance, control and judgement ensures that mindfulness becomes a thread running throughout third wave psychotherapies.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a treatment package that combines several traditions such as early behaviourism, positive psychology and mindfulness. ACT is a trans-diagnostic model that has been successfully used to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, eating disorders and substance misuse just to name a few. ACT’s target is to promote psychological flexibility, that is, the ability to behave in a way that is consistent with one’s values even in the presence of aversive experiences (e.g. thoughts, feelings, physical pain).

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), is a research-based therapy founded on a combination of principles from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Evolutionary Psychology and Attachment Theory. It was developed to work specifically with clients who had high levels of shame and self-criticism and who had had early experiences of poor attachment, affiliation and affection. By developing care and affiliative focused motivation, attention, emotion, behaviour and thinking CFT begins to address these problems. Key skills with CFT include the use of compassion focused imagery, the development of a compassionate self and the use of a sense of a compassionate self to engage with areas of personal difficulty.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) has developed as a combination of operant and skills training approaches, the incorporation of the concept of dialectics and the central role of mindfulness. Variations of DBT – in its pure form, in the form of its component parts or in adapted forms such as Radically Open DBT have developed as a gold standard approach to working with “treatment resistant” and “difficult to treat” clients.

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