CBT World Congress: 2nd conference day - sp/sr, imagery rescripting, personal practice, effective therapists, & compassion
18th July 2019
Well this was a fascinating day ... I went to my friend James Bennett-Levy's fine symposium on "Self-practice/self-reflection (SP-SR) at 18: an experiential training strategy maturing into adulthood", then on to an interesting & helpful symposium discussing broader applications of Arnoud Arntz's imagery approaches - "Efficacy of imagery rescripting as …
CBT World Congress: 1st conference day - chronotherapy, sleep, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and emotions
18th July 2019
I wrote yesterday about a pre-conference workshop I attended on "Reimagining CBT for depression" with Keith Dobson. Today is the first of the three full days of the '9th World Congress of Behavioural & Cognitive Therapies' conference proper. They aren't taking any prisoners ... each day runs from 8.30am to …
CBT World Congress: 'Reimagining CBT for major depression', Keith Dobson workshop
17th July 2019
I'm at the '9th World Congress of Behavioural & Cognitive Therapies' in Berlin. As is routine with these kinds of events, the day before is taken up with pre-conference workshops. There are 31 of them! 18 are full-day and the rest half-day. A lot of choice. I've gone for "Reimagining …
Strength training exercises improve both physical & psychological health
5th May 2019
Poor muscle strength predicts increased vulnerability to both physical & psychological health problems and earlier death, in addition to the contribution of poor aerobic, heart-lung fitness. This is true for both men & women and for all assessed age ranges. Mechanisms underlying these effects are probably multifactorial, including metabolic/biochemical, neurological …
Psychedelics and end of life distress
26th April 2019
I've been asked to write a short book section on "Psychedelics and dying" and that has nudged me into looking at this territory here on the blog. It's a fascinating subject in all kinds of ways. With the limited space I have, I'd like to comment briefly on four overlapping …
Recent research: articles from winter/spring journals
21st April 2019
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 well over 27,000 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant …
Recent psychedelic research: lessons from current personal experience - suggestions
29th March 2019
Sapere aude! Dare to use your own intelligence! This is the battle cry of the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant I have recently described my experiences taking a couple of (legal) psilocybin trips in the Netherlands - see "Lessons from current personal experience - introduction" and "Lessons from current personal experience - …
Recent psychedelic research: lessons from current personal experience - description
28th March 2019
God-speed ... To heart-opened light-burst ... Love-drenched ... Out-breath, walls melt To the tender darkness ... Mithril to wings. Willie Grieve (a friend sending good wishes for the journey). Surrendering ... to liquid night ... Welcoming dissolution A path of music ... To love's lessons ... In a sky of …
Recent psychedelic research: lessons from current personal experience - introduction
24th March 2019
Gosh, 'nerves' have come in a bit sooner than I would have expected. Lying in bed this morning, early, I felt that hard-to-describe collection of sensations ... quite a full, slightly aching feeling in my chest, and in my belly also a background sense of fullness ... and unease, caution …
Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships
28th January 2019
Over the next two days I'm due to run a two day training workshop in Glasgow on "Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships". Here are the downloadable slides for the first day on "Working with couples" (sadly with the cartoons removed for copyright reasons) and here the slides for …