Personal experience (1st post): feedback, group work & learning from difficulties
7th February 2012
"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger." Franklin P. Jones I'm a member of a "therapists' group". We currently get together for a three hour meeting once a month. I wrote about this initiative last year in the post "Setting …
Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (8th post) - sixth week's practice
2nd February 2012
I recently wrote about the fifth week of meditation practice - chapter nine in Mark Williams & Danny Penman's book. This post is about the sixth week of practice and chapter ten "Trapped in the past or living in the present?" (pp. 183 to 208). The week-by-week programme summary (p. …
Recent research: articles from January journals
1st February 2012
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 17,200 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …
Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (7th post) - fifth week's practice
26th January 2012
I wrote about chapter eight in Mark & Danny's book last week. This post is about chapter nine - the fifth week of meditation practice - "Turning towards difficulties" (pp. 159 to 182). In their week-by-week programme summary (p. 59), they write "Week five introduces a meditation - Exploring difficulty …
My brand new "two-seven-two" model of integrative psychotherapy! (second post)
23rd January 2012
I began thinking yesterday about what I actually do as a psychotherapist. This lead to a light-hearted first post describing a "two-seven-two" model of integrative psychotherapy. The initial "two" acknowledges the importance of an overview of what has been going on for the client and a good working alliance. The …
My brand new "two-seven-two" model of integrative psychotherapy! (first post)
22nd January 2012
Here's my brand new "two-seven-two" model of integrative psychotherapy. How do I know it's so fresh off the press? Well I just came up with it lying warmly in bed an hour or so ago. It's "serious" in the sense that I have been mulling over what I actually do …
Using Williams & Penman's book "Mindfulness: a practical guide" as a self-help resource (6th post) - fourth week's practice
19th January 2012
Last week I wrote about chapter seven of Mark & Danny's book. This post is about chapter eight - the fourth week of actual meditation practice - entitled "Moving beyond the rumour mill" (pp. 134 to 158). In their week-by-week overall summary of the whole programme (pp. 58 to 60), …
Emotion-focused therapy workshop series (fifth post): two chair conflict dialogues
16th January 2012
I wrote yesterday about the importance of processing "hot cognitions" and feelings. In today's post I aim to to drill down more into the emotional evocation and processing of chair work. "Two chair work for conflict splits" is often relevant, Robert Elliott suggested in this Emotion-focused therapy workshop, when clients …
Emotion-focused therapy workshop series (fourth post): the importance of processing "hot" cognitions & feelings
15th January 2012
I wrote yesterday about the morning session on "Narrative therapy and trauma processing" in the third day of an "Emotion-focused psychotherapy: Level 2 workshop series" that I'm attending at the University of Strathclyde. A couple of months ago, in my first post about this whole workshop series, I wrote "As …
Emotion-focused therapy workshop series (third post): narrative therapy and trauma processing
14th January 2012
"Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, reexperience it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts" Salman Rushdie Yesterday was the third day …