Within the framework of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), the concept of creative hopelessness often raises eyebrows and triggers misunderstandings. The term itself may seem contradictory, but it serves a powerful purpose in helping clients find new ways to approach their problems. In this post, we will explore the significance of “creative” in creative hopelessness […]
Worry, rumination,, and obsessive thinking are common experiences that can consume us without us even realising it. We get caught up in our thoughts so quickly and automatically that we don’t notice what’s happening until we’ve spent hours lost in thought, trying to solve problems, deal with emotions, predict the future, and make ourselves feel […]
The stark reality: understanding the prevalence of suicide and self-harm The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health1 looks at data from the years 2009 to 2019. It is worth considering that the landscape of mental health during the COVID pandemic and in the aftermath, has definitely become bleaker. Factors such as […]
Your opinion of perfectionism may well depend on your age, sex and economic ‘success’ in life. To the comfortably off, professional middle class or recently retired age groups, working long and hard hours “never did anyone any harm”. If you’re in your twenties and early thirties, it may be a completely different story. This constant […]
Dr Joe Oliver and Dr Ray Owen are thrilled with the success of their charity training event, “Facing the Storm” in aid of the Developing Nations Training Fund. Over 450 health and social care professionals, community support workers and spiritual carers attended and US $5,000 (£4,000) was raised to fund scholarships for professionals in the […]
We are making decisions the whole time. Tea or coffee? Netflix or news? Sit on the chair or the sofa? Scratch that itch with the left hand or the right – or not at all? Many of these decisions are unnoticeably small, and their consequences are slight. Other decisions may seem small but can have […]
We are supporting the Developing Nations Training Fund by running a webinar for health and social care professionals, community support workers and spiritual carers who support people with major life crises. The workshop, Facing the Storm, is being presented by Dr Ray Owen who is an expert working with palliative care patients and people facing […]
The picture currently painted by NHS Digital1 in England is clear; sadly the scale of poor mental health in our population of children and young people is staggering. In their report dated November 22 from the MHCYP 2017 survey, which has data from 2017, 2020 and 2021, 18% of children between 7 and 16 and […]
While co-operation, as a set of behaviours, is not unique to humans, the degree to which we co-operate is. The vehicle for this is human language, which developed out of the need of our ancestors to convey increasingly complex and abstract notions to others in their group. Higher level abstract communication allowed for the development […]
For a psychological therapist, burnout is a very real possibility. A recent study of CBT practitioners in the UK found that between 50-70% of therapists reported burnout symptoms (Westwood, Morison, Alt & Holmes, 2017). That’s a very high amount! Burnout is a phenomenon whereby we are no longer about to meet the demands of the […]
