Community for Contemporary Psychotherapy

Join the conversation

Administrator — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:43:49 +0000

If you’re a member of CCP, then this is your site, and we’re always looking for new ways to enable you to get involved and get your voice heard! Some recent developments include:

We have just re-launched our research discussion forum, for anyone who is working on their research dissertation or simply interested in psychotherapy research. Full details are on our Community page, or click Forum (under Community) and read the Introduction.
If you have an entry in our Directory of services, you can now update the details yourself! It’s very straightforward, and there’s a step-by-step illustrated guide on our Messages page.
You can also now contribute to the CCP website in the form of book reviews, poetry, news, messages, research or event announcements! All you need to know is in the step-by-step illustrated guide on our Documents page.

So do join in and get involved! And if you’ve any questions, feel free to email mike@wider-mind.com.

How to update your directory entry

Administrator — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:34:23 +0000

Yes, you can now update your own entry in the CCP Directory on the website (the Services and Directory pages). To start, just scroll right down to the bottom of any page on the website, and click on the “WordPress Admin” link. This will take you to…

… the WordPress login screen (click the image on the left to see it full-size). Here you’ll need to type in “member” (without the quotes) as your username, and the usual password (p******4 as for the Community page). Then click the Log In button, which will take you to…

… the WordPress Dashboard screen (again click on the left to see it full-size). The software that runs our directory is called Connections, so just click Connections (on the left under Dashboard) to go to…

… the main Connections directory screen, listing all the directory entries in alphabetical order. Scroll down to your own entry, and click your name to go to…

… the page for your own entry. Here you can make whatever changes are needed (and if you want you can upload a photo of yourself!), and when you have finished just click the Update button. That’s it – you can now see your updated entry in the Directory on the CCP website! And you can always go back and edit it further till you are happy with how it looks.

To log out at the end, just click “Howdy, CCP member” at the top right of the screen, then click Log Out.

And if you have any questions about what should or should not be included in your entry, please contact the BeeLeaf office, who will be monitoring changes to the Directory.

P.S. Of course in principle the Connections system would allow you to change someone else’s entry, but we take the view that this would be totally incompatible with the ethical standards expected of anyone practising counselling or psychotherapy.

Research methods – additional resources

Administrator — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:30:44 +0000

Below are some additional papers and other resources that people have asked to be made available on the CCP website, starting with a presentation by Prof. Robert Elliott:

Systematic Single Case Studies Made Easy(er).

Three resource sheets from Wendy and one from an earlier version of the course:

The slides that Prof. Mick Cooper used in the video we watched in January:

What do we know about the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy? – Cooper, Mick, presentation to Newport Centre for Counselling Research Conference, 2009.

A couple of measures (questionnaires) that can be very useful for case study research:

CORE-OM (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure) – one of the most widely-used quantitative measures of the client’s psychological distress.
CORE System User Manual – explains how to use the whole CORE system, not just the CORE-OM measure.
Helpful Aspects of Therapy form – a simple but well-respected qualitative form that aims to capture the client’s experience of therapy.

Some very useful chapters from Ryan, Anne B. (2006), Researching and Writing your thesis: a guide for postgraduate students, National University of Ireland, Maynooth:

And a selection of significant articles about research (especially case-study) methodology:

Five misunderstandings about case-study research – Flyvbjerg, Bent, in Seale C., Gobo G., Gubrium J.F., Silverman D. (eds), Qualitative Research Practice, London and Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, 2004, pp. 420-434.
Integrative approaches to qualitative and quantitative evidence – Dixon-Woods, M., Agarwal, S., Young, B., Jones, D., Sutton, A., Health Development Agency (www.hda.nhs.uk), 2004.
Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields – Elliott, R., Fischer, C.T., Rennie, D.L., British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38 (1999), pp.215-229.
Single-Case Methodology in Psychotherapy Process and Outcome Research – Hilliard, R.B., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61:3 (1993), pp.373-380.
Drawing Valid Inferences From Case Studies – Kazdin A.E., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49:2 (1981), pp.183-192.

If there’s anything else that you would like to see included, please let me know (mike@wider-mind.com)!

Mindfulness and art-making

Administrator — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:31:27 +0000

Pam has recommended an interesting and unusual research paper by a BeeLeaf student, Imi Lo, that has just been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art Therapy:

A heuristic and art-based inquiry: The experience of combining mindfulness practice and art making – Pui Yin LO, Imi, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art Therapy, 6:1 (2011), pp.51–66.

Imi says, “I guess its value lies in the fact that it is a piece of Postmodernist research (Heuristic), which is a form of action-research that is very much based on the researcher’s phenomenological point of view, whilst acknowledging the inevitable bias of the researcher’s. Such view point is very much similar to Contemporary Psychotherapy’s.”

The Thief Within

CCP member — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:03:00 +0000

Pam has drawn attention to a new book, Wasteland: The Thief Within, by a former client (no breach of confidentiality as she has named her therapists in it). It not only tells the story of life-long depression, levels of despair and self-destruction that few can fully understand unless they have experienced it, it also tracks the journey of recovery of a meaningful self through the psychotherapy client’s inner and relational world. Mary Corran is a published novelist so this book is as important for its eloquence of a journey few have previous articulated so well. Pam remarks, “What one also realises is how different the client’s experience and knowledge of what really helped them can be from the professional’s”.

Research in NLP

Administrator — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Alan Hills has emailed about an excellent article on Research in NLP from Steve Andreas’ NLP Blog.

Steve Andreas points out that there has been a lot of bad “research” into NLP, but there is also a great deal of very sound research which supports the principles of NLP, even though the researchers themselves don’t always recognise that this is what they are doing! He summarises relevant research into:

Treating PTSD and trauma using dissociation
Timelines
Motivation, specific outcomes and behavioral change
Nonverbal rapport and empathy
Negative reframing
Synesthesias
Self-control and submodalities

If you’ve ever had someone tell you that NLP isn’t supported by scientific research, then Steve’s article is for you!

How you can write for the website

CCP member — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:11:06 +0000

It’s now very easy for any CCP member to write something for the CCP website. It can be about:

Book reviews, poetry, or news (which can be read by anyone visiting the website), or
Messages, research or event announcements (which are password-protected, and intended for CCP members only).

To start, just scroll right down to the bottom of any page on the website, and click on the “WordPress Admin” link. This will take you to…

… the WordPress Dashboard screen (again click on the left to see it full-size). Since you want to add what WordPress calls a “post”, just click Posts (near the top left) to go to the Posts screen, and then in the Posts screen click Add New (under Posts near the top left). This will take you to…

… the Add New Post screen. Here you can type in the title of your post, and then in the editing box underneath (below the formatting buttons – B for bold, I for italic and so on) you can type what you want to say. You can also upload and insert images etc. with the small buttons above the editing box.

When you’ve finished, click the relevant box under Categories on the right to indicate where on the website you want your post to be displayed, and then click Publish. That’s it – you can now see your post on the CCP website! And you can always go back and edit it further, then just click Update to save the changes.

If your post is an announcement about a forthcoming event, you’ll find you can’t just click the Events category. Instead you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the Add New Post (or Edit Post) page, and click the “+” button in the bottom left of the Event Editor box to add dates and times for your event.

And to log out at the end, just click “Howdy, CCP member” at the top right of the screen, then click Log Out.

New look for the site

Administrator — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:18:19 +0000

You’ve probably already spotted that the site looks different! It’s a new WordPress “theme”, so all the content is still exactly the same; it’s just the design that’s changed.

There are a few things still to sort out (e.g. relevant images), but I hope you’ll agree that the site already looks more professional than it did before. And in due course there are lots of possibilities for further enhancements.

If you’re a member of CCP, I need your help with this; please send me (mike@wider-mind.com) any good-quality images or other content that you’d like to see on the site, and I’ll do my best to include them!

New directory of members

Administrator — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:15:12 +0000

We’ve just released an updated directory of CCP members, in a new format that’s easier for you to use and easier for us to update. Visit our Services page and see what you think!

If you’re a member of CCP, please do have a look at your entry and check that it’s correct. If there’s anything that needs changing (or if for some reason your entry is missing), please contact the Beeleaf office and let us know.