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 ‘third wave’ of up to date CBT, which learns and adapts as new science informs us, it is just as important … Continue reading
I thought you’d enjoy this Introduction penned by Dr Albert Ellis, one of the founding fathers of CBT, for his 1978 book ‘Executive Leadership: a rational approach‘. Written in his own inimitable style, his points about business leaders needing to work on emotional stability and rational thinking, as a matter of course, are still valid … Continue reading
I’ve been reading an old (over 30 years old!) book by the founding father of CBT Albert Ellis – and thought you’d enjoy reading his introduction to the principals of CBT, and it’s genesis in philosophy. I have included links to relevant posts on my self help blog if you want to try out the … Continue reading
The following is an extract from the workbook used at the Science of Happiness Workshop for Schools – teaching practical well being strategies: A quick look at applying your new learning to cyberbullying: “Cyberbullying is any harassment that occurs via the Internet. Vicious forum posts, name calling in chat rooms, posting fake profiles on web … Continue reading
Everybody is talking about Mindfulness these days. Some imagine that it’s a hippy dippy meditation technique, others that it’s a more complex philosophy for living. Actually, for me maybe it’s both of those, and neither of those. Mindfulness is a simple theory with many many applications. Why do I include it here on my CBT … Continue reading
| An example to show that there are 4 strands to how we feel and what we do: It is thought that anxiety and depression causes a shift in thinking – taking away clarity, and instead hardwiring a distorted negative mental filter (cognition). This causes inappropriate upsettness, both emotional and physical, which in turn causes … Continue reading
Notes for employer awareness of the cost of poor mental health in the workplace: . A few notes / stats to make you think: To set the scale in perspective – the World Health Organisation’s evidence based scale says that mental illness is the largest single illness of people of working age, and as big … Continue reading
Click to download as PDF: Irish Times article on CBT for Unemployed (Ireland) Contact Veronica Walsh at veronica@cbtandfeelinggood.com if you have any questions…. Choices_Feb13_18to25
Mindfulness has proven a wonderful tool in psychotherapy. There are quite a few definitions of it, and methods of using it. For the purpose of this exercise, I’m using it as an ‘all enveloping, thought stopping / relaxation’ method. Many of us are not able to meditate because we have busy heads, with our thoughts … Continue reading
Are you afraid of public speaking? Does that fear make you limit yourself in your professional and/or personal life with ‘avoidant behaviour’? Does that fear affect your performance if you do find yourself in a situation where you have to do it, preventing you from preparing well and giving your best? Cognitive behavioural training / … Continue reading
When stress becomes a disorder, it causes a shift in thinking to a negative distorted bias. When this happens, your distorted thinking is largely the cause of your feelings and behaviours – events and situations only influence them, no matter how challenging… If our thinking defaults to a negative and distorted view, we are going … Continue reading
We are always constructing reality every bit as much as we are perceiving it… … theories suggest that a person is not ‘stimulus-bound’ – or in other words, that a person does not just reflexly respond to events and situations, instead he selectively interprets and processes the information according to his own core beliefs and … Continue reading
Introducing the ‘ABC’ Technique of cognitive behavioral therapy. If we cannot ‘catch’ our negative automatic thoughts, (how we are explaining things to ourselves, literally), then we cannot examine and challenge them. CBT gives you homework and exercises designed to guide and mentor you in the process of identifying unhealthy distorted thinking, and reframing it to healthy … Continue reading
Evolution produced us: today’s fabulous human beings. But… there are a few design flaws. And some primitive automatic responses we’ve been saddled with that often do more harm than good these days. But we can learn to understand and control them with CBT… What is ‘fight or flight’? When we perceive a threat, our bodies … Continue reading
Do you suffer from musterbation? Is it always ‘must‘ and ‘should‘ and ‘ought‘ with you? This is a phrase coined by the renowned father of CBT, Albert Ellis. Musty thinking is a classic recipe for general anxiety and unhappiness. In psychotherapy it is also known as inflexible ‘DEMAND THINKING’, and ‘RULES FOR LIVING’. Let’s take … Continue reading
When we are stressed and anxious, our Negative Automatic Thoughts (NATs) assault us involuntarily… the thoughts go round and round… they become more and more unhelpful and destructive – they cause us to ‘feel’ distressing emotions – this prevents us from doing things we wish we could/would – and of course procrastinating gives us even … Continue reading
Changing your thinking with cognitive behavioral therapy.. A simple exercise to challenge your negative automatic thinking, and replace with healthy alternative thinking….. | Catch the negative thought: Keep a journal, taking notes of the actual thoughts you are thinking when you’re in a situation that upsets you and ends in self-limiting and self-sabotaging behaviour. Example: … Continue reading
The following is a commissioned article I wrote for the Dublin City Enterprise Board: All reports indicate that the global downturn is escalating incidences of anxiety and depression in people – not just for those who find themselves unemployed, but also those who remain in an unstable workforce – unsure of what is going to … Continue reading
Low self worth is often a byproduct of anxiety and depression. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeking reassurance endlessly – we might feel that we are only of worth if we are of value to others, or that our worth depends on how others treat us, or that the only way … Continue reading
Is your stress taking over? Here’s how to find out, and fix it. Thousands of Irish people who are suffering from elevated and dangerous levels of stress as a result of the economic crisis are in danger of developing anxiety or depression. The dangers of stress are not widely enough understood – people need to … Continue reading
So – you tend to look at life through a gloomy lens with your negative automatic thoughts … You’ve had them forever. They’re part of you. In fact, they have (quite literally!) burned neural pathways in your brain – so they are ‘hard-wired’, and are as ‘auto-pilot’ and involuntary as the process of driving or … Continue reading
