Why is instilling hope a critical component in the early stages of therapy? And why is hope a necessary ingredient of any successful treatment?In this blog post, we will explore the importance of hope in psychotherapy, its impact on treatment outcomes, and practical strategies for fostering hope in clients during initial sessions. The Power of […]
The Art of Crafting Transformative Psychotherapy Sessions
Therapy is a dynamic journey. It is filled with peaks and valleys, joy and despair. The therapist’s responsibility is to navigate this landscape, guiding the client with proper timing, pacing, and language. This creates a transformative, empowering, and meaningful experience for clients. Let us have a closer look at the key elements of the session […]
How Psychotherapists Can Get Inspired by Easter
Easter is time for celebrating new beginning, as it symbolize resurrection and triumph of life over death. This period of renewal and rebirth give unique opportunity for psychotherapists to reflect on themes of transformation and growth in their practice. Although Easter festivities mostly religious in nature, spirit of renewal and hope they have can be […]
How evidence-based is ACT?
Evidence-based” is a miracle term used in the field of mental health. It opens and closes doors, makes some people rich and others poor. Officially, it’s intended to promote quality of health services and safety of patients. And it works to some extent as it’s meant to. But it’s also used in a very flawed […]
On acceptance of emotions
Have you ever heard about acceptance of difficult emotions? The concept became recently quite popular in psychology. However, this coping strategy may easily be misinterpreted. Why do we have bad feelings? Our feelings are not a kind of internal entertainment system from the pre-TV era. They are not here to please us. “Difficult” emotions are […]
Mental health explained
Some time ago mental health was viewed as lack of a mental disorder. You were mentally healthy when you weren’t mentally ill. But this view has dramatically changed in this century.
Emotion regulation made simple
Have you ever watched a “Man versus Machine” science-fiction movie? These movies often portray the contrast between human beings and robots based on emotions. In the movies, machines may have equal or even superior intelligence to humans. What they lack are human feelings. These movies reflect a fundamental truth about the human condition. Our intellect […]
Four psychological takeaways from Christmas
As we are approaching Christmas, Christmas is the topic of this post. Christmas is not only a yearly reminder of something that happened long ago, and it is not only a part of a religious tradition. From the psychological point of view, Christmas contains metaphors that are relevant in the context of our current lives. […]
Therapeutic competency no 1: awareness
Have you ever wondered what might be the overarching competency that helps therapists choose whether or not to follow certain rules in therapy? A couple of months ago I delivered a workshop to a group of CBT learners, during which I did a role play as a “therapist”. After the event one of the participants […]
Therapists on a bus – therapeutic alliance in psychotherapy
Therapeutic alliance is one of the most frequently discussed topics in psychotherapy literature and its importance is broadly acknowledged. But what about the consequences of this acknowledgment? How does the robust evidence of the critical importance of alliance affect what we call evidence based treatment? Therapeutic allegiance In one of my previous posts I mentioned […]