Should group facilitators & would-be group facilitators have personal experience of the skills they're teaching?  Should swimming or driving instructors be able to swim or drive themselves?  I'm sure it's possible to help someone learn to swim without being a swimmer oneself, but if you're an instructor you're likely to do a better job and be more convincing in your suggestions if you yourself are pretty good at swimming. 

Here are half a dozen recent studies involving cognitive therapy (CBT).  The first by Craigie et al explores the use of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).  Although, as one would expect, MBCT helped GAD sufferers, it was noteworthy that results "fall well short of outcomes achieved by past research".  This adds to my concern that mindfulness training may at times be being over-hyped - see a blog I wrote in September for for more on this.  The next study by Cuijpers et al also suggests limitations to the march of CBT with interpersonal psychotherapy looking a somewhat better candidate for prevention of depression onset.  I guess one could argue that CBT can - and probably more often should - include  behavioural interventions to promote improved relationships.  Click here for tools that can help this approach.   The third piece of research by Grey et al is exciting.  It challenges the Alice in Wonderland dodo bird suggestion that "everyone has won, and all must have prizes"