Comments on: Excerpt: The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

By: Philosophy on the NHS | The History of Emotions Blog

Philosophy on the NHS | The History of Emotions Blog — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:57:35 +0000

[...] And I think we’re beginning to see more ‘philosophical counsellors’ get training in cognitive behavioural therapy, to work within the NHS Improved Access for Psychotherapies scheme. I hear Tim Le Bon recently trained in CBT, for example – I’ll be interviewing him about it next week. On the other side, cognitive psychotherapists are becoming more interested in the ancient philosophical roots of their practice – a great example is Donald Robertson, head of the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, who recently published the impressive book, The Philosophy of CBT. [...]

By: Brian Bell

Brian Bell — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:20:41 +0000

Hi
Really interesting topic area.
I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton.
Myself and two colleagues (David Bell – Dean Holyoake) run workshops for each mental health cohort around CBT and SFBT.
We discuss as a key theme in each workshop the underpinning philosophies of both approaches. Feedback from students is excellent. It is something they really enjoy.

By: Whitehall’s new philosophy of well-being - Global Dashboard – Blog covering International affairs and global risks

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:26:33 +0000

[...] that is through the increased provision of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which is based on…ancient Greek philosophy! Ha, Macaulay. Right [...]

By: Can we learn resilience? | The History of Emotions Blog

Can we learn resilience? | The History of Emotions Blog — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:08:24 +0000

[...] approach was derived by the inventors of CBT from ancient Greek philosophy, particularly from Socrates and the Stoics. Indeed, Aaron Beck, one [...]

By: Review of The Philosophy of CBT on Politics of Wellbeing | The Philosophy of CBT

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:40:17 +0000

[...] Robertson, a British therapist who is head of the UK College of CBT, has a new book out called The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which looks at the roots of CBT in ancient Greek philosophy. Donald, like me, is fascinated by the [...]

By: karen

karen — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:51:05 +0000

Just to say thanks, I am training at level 4 on a counselling with CBT course. I have been finding it a tad difficult in relation to all the assignments we have to complete in such a short space. I am very interested in the roots of where it all began and I have found your work extremely helpful as the qusetion I am on is all about the historical developement of the model and its basic philosophy. I am very interested in your book and I intend to buy it. Karen Dunton

By: UK College

UK College — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:33:53 +0000

Sorry about the wait. It was published last week by Karnac and is now in stock on Amazon UK. I don’t know when it will be in stock at Amazon US but it probably won’t be very long. Only Amazon or the publisher would be able to give a more specific date, unfortunately. It should be soon but send them an email if you want to pin down the date.

Donald Robertson

By: Steven Hamilton

Steven Hamilton — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:24:31 +0000

I have pre-ordered the Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy from Amazon US but it does not appear to have been released here yet and I have not gotten any response from the publisher yet as to when it will be. It has been my experience that publishers often ignore this type of query. Do you have any idea as to when a US release will occur?

By: UK College

UK College — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:33:50 +0000

Hi Celeste,

Well, this is an academic text that presupposes some basic knowledge of CBT so it’s maybe not ideal as the very first book to read, unless you’re also quite interested in philosophy. If you’re looking for a quick and very basic overview of CBT you might as well start with the Wikipedia article. CBT is used to treat a very wide range of issues but is particularly favoured in the treatment of clinical depression and most anxiety disorders, where it generally has a stronger evidence-base than other psychotherapy modalities. The average number of sessions varies depending on the particular treatment protocol being used and the problem treated. However, cognitive therapy for clinical depression was traditionally 16-20 sessions, including relapse prevention.

How many people benefit? That’s a bit of a “how long’s a piece of string?” question. Some types of problem generally have much higher mean success rates than others, across the board, regardless of the treatment offered. On average, most people are “positively changed” by most therapies. However, more stringent criteria are normally used in research to test the clinical significance of treatment outcomes. About half the patients with clinical depression, on average, tend to exhibit clinically-significant improvement in clinical trials using cognitive therapy for depression. To answer your question, though, you really need to compare like-with-like by looking at specific studies. Assen Alladin recently published a well-received randomised-controlled trial (RCT) comparing hypnotherapy head-to-head against cognitive therapy for depression, and found they achieved very similar results.

If you’re really looking for a very “easy read” then try CBT for Dummies by Wilson and Branch, which is actually a reasonably good starting point. I don’t think it will go into treatment outcome research in much detail, though. If you do want something a bit more technical then try Dobson & Dobson’s recent Evidence-Based Practice of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Donald Robertson

By: Celeste Hackett

Celeste Hackett — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:07:21 +0000

I would really like to understand more about the techniques used in CBT. I am a hypnosis instructor and would like to talk more about what CBT is, what CBT is applied to (issue wise), how long it takes to resolve issues in most cases, and how many people finish the “work” positively changed by it.

My question is, can you direct me to an easy read that covers these sorts of topics? Is this the book I seek? Thank you!
Celeste Hackett