Advances in neuroscience are changing the world of psychology and how we understand and manage the way we explain the world to ourselves. This post is an introduction to the neuroscience of memories and our central nervous system, for better skills in self management – change your brain through ‘learning and doing’. Each of us moves through … Continue reading
Neuroscience is changing psychology models and how we understand and manage our lives. With traditional CBT back in the day, it was all about thoughts causing feelings which cause behaviours – but in this new wave of up to date CBT, which learns and adapts as new science informs us, it is just as important … Continue reading
This page has links to over 100 free downloadable CBT worksheets and handouts – these are proven fun and extensive resources, used by mental health professionals worldwide, with over a million views and 100s of thousands of downloads. Continue reading
A 2 page CBT handout: to reframe job interview anxiety self-talk Continue reading
A short list of psychology models and descriptions (specifically for awareness and self management / evidence based work)… Continue reading
A super simple CBT handout showing examples of simplistic negative thoughts that cause feelings and behaviour. Continue reading
Are you angry all the time? That’s anxiety, it’s a stress disorder issue that you can learn to understand and manage. When stress is a disorder, it can heighten and dramatize our experiences, often causing us to live in anger mode as our default state. Low, moderate, or high. This can create unhelpful automatic neural … Continue reading
“You will be shown your place – and you will see and accept my place.” A CBT handout to understand and deal with exclusion bullying A hypothetical post looking at ‘Relational Aggression’ – “behavior that manipulates or damages relationships between individuals or groups, such as bullying, gossiping, and humiliation” [link APA Dictionary of Psychology] Situation: a … Continue reading
This CBT exercise will help you to track & map self-sabotaging things that you DO. Check out the below templates of ABC examples – they map how your perception of a situation or event causes your feelings and behaviours in response to it (‘ABC’ standing for: Activating Event – Beliefs and Thoughts about the event … Continue reading
This post is a handout on CBT tools for distorted Covid19 self-talk. [Warning: there are curse words in the examples, because humans cuss – thought I may edit – work in progress, first draft] How are you explaining the Covid19 pandemic situation to yourself? In these dramatic times it is important to regulate overly dramatic […]
I recently had a health drama, and had to CBT myself – and as a CBT ninja, (it is my job after all, so I can call myself that), I accepted reality and ‘self regulated’ – but at the most scary ‘high negative event’ time at the start, waiting for initial biopsies, with the my … Continue reading
iVeronicaWalsh.wordpress.com – guided self help CBT worksheets: The Low Frustration Tolerance ‘thought form’ worksheet Many people who suffer from stress disorders develop Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) – this is a term coined by one of the founding fathers of CBT, Dr Albert Ellis, referring to when we imagine we cannot and will not and should … Continue reading
When stress becomes a disorder it causes a shift in ‘thinking’ and the lens you evaluate the world through (how you explain the world to yourself) distorts – either low, moderate or high. You’re not making everything up, you’re not seeing pink unicorns, but your filter goes gray and veers towards an exaggeration of the … Continue reading
iCBT – purchase online sessions Maybe you’d like to work with me remotely from wherever you are through online training exchanges – while using this self help blog resource? We can do that through Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime and / or telephone, and / or email discussions. Resources: I am a corporate trainer by background … Continue reading
Tips to ask yourself about crooked thinking before you ‘thought-stop and reframe’ using rational thinking skills : Am I using one of my Bad Thinking Habits? Which one? What is the evidence for this thought or belief? Is there any evidence against it? Am I getting things out of proportion? Is that a bit … Continue reading
One of the leaders of the Positive Psychology movement, Shawn Achor, the happiness guy from Harvard, has a great imagery packed 12 minute TedTalk explaining our negative and positive filters, and some problematic approaches in psychology. I showed it to one of my clients, an Irish comedian, recently: and he declared it ‘a perfect set’. … Continue reading
The perils of perfectionism with the female executive. Rising to the top of the corporate world is inarguably harder for women than men. Breaking through the layers of glass ceilings often means that just like Ginger Rodgers, you have to do everything that Fred Astaire does, but backwards and in heels. And you want it … Continue reading
Accessible science and data through visuals: update your ‘stress in the workplace‘ information by checking out this infographic on work related disorder stats. It was created by the Eastern Kentucky University’s Bachelor of Science in Occupational Safety Program, and is such extensive outsourced research it could reasonably apply to any Western country. Enjoy… (LINKS: Click … Continue reading
Bestselling author Helen Russell has written a new book ‘Leap Year‘, about ‘how to be more resilient and change your life for good’ – in it she gets guided-self-help advice from various experts for various issues, and then she, or her willing guinea pigs, try out the advice and report outcomes and results – in … Continue reading
As I wait patiently for the decades old impractical psychology models to be truly disrupted by neurobiology, I thought I would introduce you to the ideas of Patricia Churchland – the renowned award winning professor of philosophy, author and intellectual thinker-inflencer, and originator of ‘neurophilosophy’ – who has disrupted classic philosophy with her ‘heretical’ view that the mind … Continue reading
This post shows my feature article from the Sunday Business Post Magazine (BusinessPost.ie) : ‘Glass Half Empty’ – a look at the basic science of what using alcohol for stress relief does, plus practical life hacks for managing an unhelpful alcohol habit… Click on any of the images below for a hi res ‘zoom to read’ window – and/or refer to the original post … Continue reading
iVeronicaWalsh.wordpress.com guided self help worksheets: Many people who suffer from stress disorders develop Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) – this is a term coined by one of the founding fathers of CBT, Dr Albert Ellis, referring to when we imagine we cannot and will not and should not have to tolerate conditions that frustrate us (eg … Continue reading
In the interests of continuing to be a magpie that picks up shiny accessible cognitive science, and packages it in tasty bites for you to add to your ‘thinking skills’ – I have transcribed a number of ‘quotes’ by the character of Dr. Daniel Pierce, a crime-solving genius neuroscientist in the TV show Perception. The … Continue reading
Think about your thinking… a new fast introduction to cognitive science for civilians: From the moment you are born, you collect experiences and build memories that help you to evaluate and navigate the world. (Evaluation, filtering, perception). Your brain uses these experiences to build neural pathways – automatic information chains of data in your brain – which … Continue reading
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 7 days for that many people to see … Continue reading
Cognitive science tells us that when stress becomes a disorder it causes a shift in thinking – so that our attributional style (ie the way we explain the world to ourselves, also known as our ‘explanatory style‘) becomes distorted and stretched out of proportion, which can cause us (and those around us) more upset than … Continue reading
A quick and powerful Cognitive Behavioural Training theory and application worksheet for great well being. “People are not their behaviors, their behaviors are just something they do sometimes.” Do you often get angry at people? This lesson will help you to build awareness of how you are explaining people’s behavior to yourself, and to consider whether you … Continue reading
Interview: Public Speaking with Veronica Walsh by Today FM 31st May 2015 14:45 We’re all afraid of something… spiders, flying, heights, cats, mice… the list goes on and on. But for some people their fears are life-limiting & one of the most debilitating phobias out there is the fear of public speaking. It’s said that … Continue reading
An audio of an interview with me by the host of the NewstalkFM 6am (!) Breakfast Business Show about using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to manage stress in the workplace:
This is a radio interview I did with The Tom Dunne show on NewstalkFM Ireland about making new friends late in life when your social network shrinks. It’s a discussion (with Tom Dunne and the Irish Times journalist Fiona McCann) on how life changes, and using http://www.meetup.com (the worldwide social networking site, facilitating ‘meetup’ groups … Continue reading
If your stress has become a disorder – whether low, moderate, or high, whether anxiety or depression – it is likely that you over-think and over-feel and over-react, and that your habits interfere with your enjoyment of life. A classic response to stress is ‘avoidant behaviour’ – where we develop habits of avoiding activities that … Continue reading
A CBT guide to track and dispute the vicious circle of bad thinking habits: Tips: consider the overdramatic statement – and reframe it, by asking yourself the following: Am I using one of my Bad Thinking Habits? Which one? Am I using emotional reasoning (oh my feelings!) – feelings are not facts. What is … Continue reading
Know your brain: The ‘third wave’ of cognitive behavioural training uses everything that has been proven to work to help people to literally learn wellbeing and new skills in self management, outside of the traditional model of psychology that was concerned with disease and sickness and focussing on a medical solution for chemical imbalances. THINKING: … Continue reading
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): is a type of depression that occurs during a particular season – usually winter – and is thought to be caused by a neurological anomaly due to the lack of light. Treatment has traditionally been with ‘lightboxes’ (light therapy / phototherapy), where sufferers are routinely exposed to artificial light that can … Continue reading
Become your own therapist through literally learning ‘how to be happy’ through applying rational thinking skills. Cool yourself down into a moderate calm thinker with the renowned and powerful Albert Ellis rational thinking table. Use it. Love it. If you accept the theory that our brains have been cobbled together by evolution, and are not … Continue reading
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see … Continue reading
The ABC of CBT – think about your thinking – consider and discuss the following diagrams to link thoughts and feelings and behaviours : An example ABC showing how stress can cause dramatic distorted thinking, which can in turn cause dramatic distorted feelings and behaviours – do you do this in some … Continue reading
[extract from my Smart Skills for Students school presentation] What are you thinking? How are you explaining the world to yourself? WHO does that thinking make you? HOW does that thinking make you? Who do you want to be? How do you want to be? Take a look at this simple and beautiful extract from … Continue reading
New evidence based practical science says that when stress becomes a disorder, it ‘causes a shift in thinking’ – as if you had put negative crooked gloomy glasses on, and view the world through them instead of with rational thinking skills. Often, when people become stressed to the point where it is an actual disorder, … Continue reading
This post introduces you to the views of the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, the ‘Buddha of the west’, to get you thinking about thinking. What does philosophy have to do with psychotherapy? Well, everything. Today’s so called third wave of CBT is ‘holistic’ and a philosophy for living. For all day every day. Dr Albert … Continue reading
A CBT tour of our amazing brain… Take a journey through the following links for accessible short posts explaining our brain’s chemical role in how we view and respond to events: Did you know that stress in childhood can literally restructure the brain so that the fear centre is strengthened and always on the … Continue reading
What is your self talk? Is it overly dramatic and causing you over upsetness? Modern psychotherapy does not believe that anxiety and depression are ‘just chemical’ – and it recommends learning how to develop awareness and management of your ‘attributional style’ – (how you explain the world to yourself through your thinking, either positively or … Continue reading
I really like the following list of Maslow’s characteristics of ‘self-actualizers’ as cited on the SimplyPsychology.org website. You can see a diagram of Maslow’s Heirarchy of Human Needs pyramid above, and then scroll down in this post to see the self actualization characteristics – it fits beautifully with the third wave of CBT’s cognitive reframing, … Continue reading
My work is about how to use our brains more efficiently – not just around psychological health, but also in how our brains process and store and recall information – the tool I teach for this is ‘mind mapping’ and ‘visual note taking’. For many people – whether the task is an interview, a presentation, … Continue reading
The UN compose and issue a ‘world happiness index’ every year, and the UK measure ‘national happiness’ for economic indicators and strategies, while other countries and international organisations, from China to the OECD, are piloting their own well being measurement systems. Why? The old ways of measuring a country’s ‘health’ by GDP are outdated. … Continue reading
“I can’t keep calm, because I can’t breathe properly!” When we are anxious we are in a ‘fight or flight‘ state. This is when the body pumps itself up with adrenaline and cortisol and oxygen to prepare for a situation that it perceives as a ‘threat’, whether low moderate or high. Today’s threats are mainly … Continue reading
A Quick CBT look at Low Frustration Tolerance Are you quick to irritation and anger? Do people annoy you? Do you ‘hate’ some people? Do you have to punish people often? Do you describe yourself as not ‘suffering fools gladly’? Do you think life is unfair? If the answer to many of those questions is … Continue reading
ELSEVIER – PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE RESEARCH PAPER: “Cognitive-behavioural training to change attributional style improves employee well-being, job satisfaction, productivity, and turnover” ‘Attributional style’, also known as explanatory style, is a psychological term for how we explain the world to ourselves, our ‘mindset’. This post contains an introduction and a PDF download link to the acclaimed UK and Australian academic study … Continue reading
A quick stress disorder check list: This post helps you to evaluate known indicators of stress against how you feel, how you think and how you behave – Have a look at the table below (click the image to open an easy to read large image popup) – can you recognise yourself there? If your … Continue reading
Do you have anxiety? Does your physiological response to ‘stress’ rule your life? So, modern evidence based psychotherapy and neuroscience tells us that when stress becomes a disorder, it causes a shift in thinking, and we develop distorted and negative bad thinking habits, which cause inappropriate emotional and physical and behavioural responses to everyday life. … Continue reading
A thought stopping technique: ‘Just Noting’ with Mindfulness The beginning of my work with clients is in building a foundation where we understand and can build awareness of how we ‘think’ – what our self talk is, and whether stress has become a disorder that has caused a shift in thinking to a distorted negative … Continue reading
