Kaya and Mark have been in a relationship for a little over a year now and are attending couples counselling. Halfway through the session, the therapist asks for more information about the fights they are having. Kaya reports that Mark recently pushed her into a wall, and that he sometimes viciously pulls things like her phone, the TV remote amongst others out of her hand. Mark admits to this, and... »
In CBT, verbal techniques are used to bring forth the client’s automatic thoughts, analyse the logic behind the thoughts, identify unhelpful assumptions, and examine the validity of the assumptions. Assumptions, once identified, are open to modification, which can occur by asking the client if the assumption seems reasonable, by having the client generate reasons for and against maintaining ... »
If you look at the Oxford Dictionary entry for the word ‘emotion’, you will find it is a noun, a thing, described as follows: »
Kottler, Jeffrey, A., and Shepard, David, S. (2015). Introduction to Counseling: Voices from the Field. (8th ed). Stamford, USA: Cengage Learning. »
The research in neuroscience is highly supportive of counselling’s emphasis on deep listening, empathic understanding, strength building, and wellness (Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, & Quirk, 2011). Counselling is shown to change the organisation of the brain: a learning process as the brain responds to stimuli and creates neural pathways to accommodate new information (Ivey, 2009). “Information” includes... »
Generally considered a short-term therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) often consists of about 8 to 12 sessions in which client and therapist work collaboratively to identify problem thoughts and behaviours (click here to learn more about CBT’s principles and practices). CBT is considered the gold standard in the psychotherapeutic treatment of anxiety disorders and several meta-analyses (i... »
Many people have suspected for a long time that we human beings are designed to be able to experience things happening for another person: in good times or in bad. So we see a stranger clumsily bump their head on a low-hanging branch at the park, and we flinch, too. We hear that a friend has gotten some good news about a medical diagnosis, and we are genuinely happier. Yet although we have suspect... »
Every 40 seconds a person dies by suicide somewhere in the world. “Preventing suicide: a global imperative” is the first WHO report of its kind. It aims to increase awareness of the public health significance of suicide and suicide attempts, to make suicide prevention a higher priority on the global public health agenda, and to encourage and support countries to develop or strengthen c... »
If you are a mental health helper of almost any stripe: social worker, counsellor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or even psychiatrist, it would be surprising for you not to have heard of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), such is its fame in the mental health professions. We can broadly define it as a combination of cognitive and behavioural therapeutic approaches used to help clients modify limi... »
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