***
James Hillman, a charismatic therapist and best-selling author whose theories about the psyche helped revive interest in the ideas of Carl Jung, animating the so-called men’s movement in the 1990s and stirring the pop-cultural air, died on Thursday 27 October 2011, at his home in Thompson, Conn. He was 85.
James Hillman was one of the most inspirational contemporary thinkers in psychotherapy field. His thought-provoking and soulful ideas will be greatly missed.
Read New York Times tribute: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/health/james-hillman-therapist-in-mens-movement-dies-at-85.html
Watch DVD trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFng0WCJ8X8&feature=related
Buy James Hillman's DVDs: http://www.psychotherapydvds.com/James-Hillman-Set
Our video tribute to this extraordinary man:
Showing posts with label therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label therapy. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Cognitive-Bias Modification
Cognitive-Bias Modification has been in the news recently - but what is it?
CBM is a relatively new style of psychological treatment that works by the client simply sitting in front of their PC. CBM is a form of therapy that works on Attentional Biases. If you take as an example, people suffering anxiety disorder: they may have an attentional bias towards threat. This means they are drawn towards stimuli that they perceive to be dangerous. This attentional bias then affects memory and the recall of an event. As the anxiety sufferer has a bias towards 'threat' stimuli, these are the elements that are remembered when trying to recall a memory. Likewise, drug users have demonstrated an attentional bias towards drug related cues.
The aim of CBM is to change these biases.
The most common method used to re-train attention is the 'dot-probe task.' Two stimuli are briefly presented on a screen: One is emotionally relevant (i.e. designed to draw the attention due to the attentional bias) and the other is neutral. The stimuli is displayed for half a second then one is replaced by a task that the client must respond to. The attentional bias is indicated by the difference in reaction time to the task after it replaces an emotionally relevant stimuli compared to neutral stimuli.
Gradually the task replaces the neutral stimuli increasingly until it replaces the neutral stimuli 100% of the time. The client learns an implicit 'if-then' rule, namely: If both stimuli are present, then attend to the neutral stimuli. Often, repeating the procedure a number of times over an extended time period will change the client's tendency to focus on the emotionally relevant stimuli. That change is then carried over into the world.
The effectiveness for this method is still to be decided, with conflicting evidence at the moment, although it still tends towards being effective.
One of the major advantages of this style of therapy style, assuming it works, is that the client need only sit in front of their pc and run the program. They will no longer need to attend therapy sessions anymore. But only if CBM really is the panacea it hopes to be.
CBM is a relatively new style of psychological treatment that works by the client simply sitting in front of their PC. CBM is a form of therapy that works on Attentional Biases. If you take as an example, people suffering anxiety disorder: they may have an attentional bias towards threat. This means they are drawn towards stimuli that they perceive to be dangerous. This attentional bias then affects memory and the recall of an event. As the anxiety sufferer has a bias towards 'threat' stimuli, these are the elements that are remembered when trying to recall a memory. Likewise, drug users have demonstrated an attentional bias towards drug related cues.
The aim of CBM is to change these biases.
The most common method used to re-train attention is the 'dot-probe task.' Two stimuli are briefly presented on a screen: One is emotionally relevant (i.e. designed to draw the attention due to the attentional bias) and the other is neutral. The stimuli is displayed for half a second then one is replaced by a task that the client must respond to. The attentional bias is indicated by the difference in reaction time to the task after it replaces an emotionally relevant stimuli compared to neutral stimuli.
Gradually the task replaces the neutral stimuli increasingly until it replaces the neutral stimuli 100% of the time. The client learns an implicit 'if-then' rule, namely: If both stimuli are present, then attend to the neutral stimuli. Often, repeating the procedure a number of times over an extended time period will change the client's tendency to focus on the emotionally relevant stimuli. That change is then carried over into the world.
The effectiveness for this method is still to be decided, with conflicting evidence at the moment, although it still tends towards being effective.
One of the major advantages of this style of therapy style, assuming it works, is that the client need only sit in front of their pc and run the program. They will no longer need to attend therapy sessions anymore. But only if CBM really is the panacea it hopes to be.
Friday, 15 October 2010
Therapy and Medication for Migraine Sufferers works the best
The combination of preventive medication and behavioral changes offered significant relief for 77% of participants.
"Migraines are a long-term disorder and we wanted to closely monitor participants every day for at least 16 months to find out if these treatments keep working over time," said lead author Kenneth Holroyd.
Participants were assigned randomly to have one of four treatments. One group received the combination of preventive medication (beta blockers) and behavioral migraine management, one received only the medication, one received only the behavioral therapy, and one served as a control group.
The combined therapy group showed the greatest improvement in the number of migraines, days with migraine and in quality of life, the researchers report.
A small percentage of participants reported fatigue as a side effect of the preventive medication, and some participants reported lack of time to learn or practice the behavioral techniques. But used consistently and together, the two approaches were effective for prevention and management of migraines.
These findings could be very useful to when treating patients with frequent, hard-to-control migraines. More evidence that medication alone is not always the best course of action!
Link to Article
"Migraines are a long-term disorder and we wanted to closely monitor participants every day for at least 16 months to find out if these treatments keep working over time," said lead author Kenneth Holroyd.
Participants were assigned randomly to have one of four treatments. One group received the combination of preventive medication (beta blockers) and behavioral migraine management, one received only the medication, one received only the behavioral therapy, and one served as a control group.
The combined therapy group showed the greatest improvement in the number of migraines, days with migraine and in quality of life, the researchers report.
A small percentage of participants reported fatigue as a side effect of the preventive medication, and some participants reported lack of time to learn or practice the behavioral techniques. But used consistently and together, the two approaches were effective for prevention and management of migraines.
These findings could be very useful to when treating patients with frequent, hard-to-control migraines. More evidence that medication alone is not always the best course of action!
Link to Article
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