I wrote yesterday giving the official description of Arnoud Arntz's workshop in Belfast and explaining that getting an update on his work was the major reason I travelled to the BABCP Spring Conference & Workshops.  So how was it actually being there?  It was definitely worthwhile.  When I walked into the workshop, Arnoud greeted me saying something like "Why are you here, you already know all this stuff!"  Far from it.  Although I have done several days of training with Arnoud in the past, there is still lots for me to learn.  And it was very interesting to get an update on how his work has progressed. 

I have already written a brief introductory description of the two day British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Spring Workshops and Conference in Belfast last month.  I reported that I had been to Arnoud Arntz's workshop on Schema-Focused Therapy.  I have been to several training days with Arnoud before, but it was helpful getting an update on what he is doing.  And at the conference proper, one of the highlights for me was a first report by Arnoud of results from a major new study on the treatment of six different personality disorders using schema therapy.  

"The walls we build to protect ourselves become the prisons in which we live"   Alice Miller (adapted) 

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear."   James Hollingworth

Yesterday NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in England & Wales - published guidance on a diverse range of fifteen clinical, technology, interventional and public health subjects.  Their clinical guidance on Medicines Adherence  interested me, as too did their public health guidance on Promoting Physical Activity for Children and Young People.  The subject of this post is the clinical guidance on Antisocial Personality Disorder and in my next post, I'll talk about their guidance on Borderline Personality Disorder.  As Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director, National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, states: "Approximately 2 million people in the UK have personality disorders, with antisocial and borderline disorders being the most common.

Here are a set of diverse handouts and questionnaires on emotions, schema and personality.  The "triangle of emotions" is a model I put together to help guide work on the longer term dysfunctional personality patterns that we probably all experience to some extent.  The "big five" is a very widely used way of assessing personality, and this "ten aspects" version I find particularly interesting.  There are then a series of handouts from Arnoud Arntz's fine work on understanding and treatment of borderline personality disorder.  I have found that Arntz's ideas seem more broadly helpful than just with borderline (which anyway is a poor descriptor for this emotional regulation disorder).  There are also some sheets derived from Young's associated work on schema. 

“

If a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are his pockets

” - Traditional

This section contains handouts and questionnaires about emotions, feelings & personality.  It seems helpful to understand emotions through an evolutionary perspective - we have emotions, to a large extent, because they had (and have) survival value.  We are the descendants of people with adaptive emotional systems that helped them stay alive and function well.  Typically unwelcome feelings that seem maladaptive are due to emotions that are firing off inappropriately.  As a rule of thumb, if an emotion is an appropriate reaction to a situation it can help us respond successfully.  If the emotion is inappropriate then it's likely to be more useful to work to change the emotional response - through therapy or other approaches.