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Wellness

Book Review: Spirituality in Counseling and Psychotherapy

Johnson, Rick. (2013). Spirituality in counseling and psychotherapy: An integrative approach that empowers clients. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Spirituality in counselling and psychotherapy offers a practical exploration of the understanding and integration of spirituality in contemporary counselling. It is a practical text guiding the reader through an awareness of self and the role […]

Mindfulness Practice: Problems and Solutions

Although only recently embraced by Western psychology, mindfulness practices and techniques have been part of many Eastern philosophies, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Tai Chi, Hinduism, and most martial arts, for thousands of years. The various definitions of it revolve around bringing non-judgmental consciousness to the present experience, so it can be considered the art of […]

Mindfulness Techniques: Defusion Exercises

Mindfulness (learn more about mindfulness here) interventions have been shown to be beneficial for a wide range of psychological and physical conditions such as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, personality disorders, and addictions. Controlled trials of normal populations have also demonstrated positive changes in brain function and immune response, self-awareness, perceived stress, and increase in self-compassion […]

Coping with Bad Memories

Dr Jeremy Dean, a psychologist and author of PsyBlog, recently wrote a blog post exploring a new technique that holds promise for those experiencing disturbing emotional flashbacks. The post offers insightful ideas — particularly for those working with trauma and grief. Here’s an abstract: A better way to deal with recurring negative memories is to […]

Book Review: Developing Resilience

Neenan, M. (2009). Developing resilience: A cognitive-behavioural approach. East Essex, UK: Routledge. Pain, tragedy and sadness happen, how people react and recover from adverse life events can be as varied as the event itself. Why is this? How can two people experience the same incident yet one individual can fall apart and the other can […]

Sleep and wellbeing

Sleep is essential for health and well-being. But millions of people don’t get enough, resulting in such problems as daytime sleepiness, poor decision-making, interference with learning and accidents. The American Psychological Association’s page on “Sleep” includes a range of articles with scientific information on sleep-related issues, and tips on how to sleep better? Other popular […]

Lifestyle Interventions for Depression

Treatments for depression or anxiety, also called “interventions”, fall into one of three categories, and often several are recommended to be taken up at once. These main groupings are: Medical interventions; Psychological interventions; and Lifestyle interventions. In this post we overview a range of lifestyle interventions therapists can suggest when treating depression. Bibliotherapy What is […]

Positive Psychology and Resilience

What makes one person ‘bounce back’ following adversity and another person seem to ‘crumble in a heap’? This question has always posed a fascination for me. I have often wondered whether individuals are simply born with the skills to cope with the difficulties that life often presents or whether there are a set of stress-coping […]

Book Review: Help for the Helper

Rothschild, B. (2006). Help for the helper. The psychophysiology of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. New York. W. W. Norton & Company. Burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma are risks that, as therapist we are aware of however whilst many of us have a toolbox full of techniques to assist our clients, we often fall […]

Happiness, Positive Psychology and Wellbeing

The concept of happiness is the corner stone of the assumptions of positive psychology. Happiness is characterised by the experience of more frequent positive affective states than negative ones as well as a perception that one is progressing toward important life goals (Tkach & Lyubomirsky, 2006). Identifying factors that contribute to happiness has proven to […]