"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. "


Recent research: articles from February journals

March 10, 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 17,400 abstracts.

Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas of stress, health & wellbeing) and then filter them into four narrower, more specific mailings. One is primarily for cognitive-behavioural therapists linked with the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) and other CBT organizations around the world. This set of abstracts focuses particularly on cognitive therapy in its many applications (anxiety, depression, psychotic disorders, etc). Click on BABCP mailing to see the 30 abstracts (mostly from February) that I have listed.

A second, and more recent development, is for people who have expressed an interest in keeping up to date with research relevant to compassion - see the post "Proposal for a BABCP special interest group on compassion" - and the Compassion mailing for 12 abstracts that I've recently sent out.

A third mailing is to various people involved with Action on Depression Scotland (AOD). AOD is the only charity specifically working for people with depression who live in Scotland. I've been on their Clinical Advisory Board for some years. These abstracts focus more on depression and many are about antidepressant medication as well as others which overlap with the BABCP mailing on psychotherapy. Click on AOD mailing to see the 27 abstracts recently sent out.

The fourth mailing is to the editor of the British Holistic Medical Association (BHMA) newsletter. Back in the early 1980's I was on the working party that set up the BHMA. I'm not much involved with them now - partly because many of their original objectives have been achieved and are now mainstream. This month's BHMA mailing contains 36 abstracts covering a multitude of stress, health & wellbeing related subjects including the psychological benefits of "accepting" feeling sad, online courses for chronic back pain, nocebo effects, empathy, exercise & sexual function, dietary affected facial colouration & judged attractiveness, facial botox injections as a treatment for depression and much more.