CBT Blog

Recent Articles

What to Expect from CBT & ACT Therapy?

FLOW OF THERAPEUTIC CONVERSATION: In both traditional CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) & its newer incarnations ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) conversations will often have the general ebb and flow of normal conversation with an extra emphasis on both therapist and client both practicing genuine expression and active listening. Agenda setting for each session is encouraged, e.g., setting topic focus points within any given meeting. Both therapist and client are expected to contribute to setting that agenda. Conversation points will often be intentionally paused, slowed down, rewound, fast-forwarded, repeated and summarized, and/or returned to in follow-up sessions. Between session commitments (homework)

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Embracing Your Demons: an Overview of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Written by Russell Harris)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is one of the recent mindfulness-based behaviour therapies shown to be effective with a diverse range of clinical conditions. In contrast to the assumption of ‘healthy normality’ of Western psychology, ACT assumes that the psychological processes of a normal human mind are often destructive and create psychological suffering. Symptom reduction is not a goal of ACT, based on the view that ongoing attempts to get rid of ‘symptoms’ can create clinical disorders in the first place. RUSSELL HARRIS provides an overview of ACT against a background of the suffering generated by experiential avoidance and emotional control.

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Human Pain and Human Vitality (From the March 5, 2007 issue of the Sunday Telegraph in the UK)

Nearly 30 years ago I had my first panic attack. A productive and reasonably successful young academic, I soon found myself struggling to give a lecture, to speak on the phone, or to ride in an elevator. From the outside I appeared calm – but on the inside I felt I was dying. Literally. Sitting still on a park bench my heart beat 165 times a minute as I fought a battle, not with a physical challenge requiring such blood flow, but with the word machine between my ears. Some of my experiences at the height of this struggle now

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