CBT - how can I learn more?

[Earlybird]

Am very curious to learn about the techniques taught in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Can anyone advise? Book recommendations would be much appreciated.

www.livinglifetothefull.com

www.amazon.co.uk/Brilliant-Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-Improve/dp/0273724908

CBT is amazingly effective. I used the techniques in CBT and the 1970 equal pay act to get a pay rise out of my employer.

CBT is practical and gets results quite quickly.

Earlybird - I'm sure reallytired has given you good recommendations, though I am amazed that she used it to get a pay rise! I couldn't open the links but there is a wealth of information out there on CBT and Amazon will have loads of stuff. The book I have is called Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky. It's easy to read and includes exercises you can do (I don't mean physical stuff!) to monitor how you are doing etc.

I have been introduced to it by my CPN (community psychiatric nurse) as I am struggling to recover from a severe episode of depression. It is a very simple theory which is about how we THINK affects how we FEEL and that affects how we BEHAVE and so if our thinking is very negative (as mine tends to be) we need to replace it with more balanced thinking, to stop scaring ourselves, and to change the way we FEEL and encourage us to do more activities, which is more likely to make us feel better, than lying around thinking negative thoughts. I can see the sense and logic and have proved that it can work but it is a struggle to replace negative thoughts with more balanced ones when I am feeling very low, but that is exactly the time when I need my thoughts to be more balanced/more positive. Sometimes easier said than done but still a very important tool in coping with depression.

I'm surprised that the links didn't work. Google "Living life to the full" and "Briliant CBT by Steven Briers".

I used ideas from the module on assetiveness in "Living life to the Full" to ask for a pay rise and I got it!

CBT challlenges negative thinking. For example a negative thought might be "I am a worthless piece of shit!" CBT might suggest that you do an example to test to see if this negative thinking is true.

I used scripting techniques in the assertiveness module to put my point across. It proved to me that I am not a useless piece of shit.

I think if someone is seriously ill then CBT will not be enough. You will need medication. You have to work quite hard.

Thanks to all for your resource suggestions. It should give me a good starting point.

If anyone has any additional thoughts/suggestions, please share.