Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Cognitive Therapy (CBT) - reading for therapists

CBT is not just the "in vogue" therapy - its the one with the most evidence for its effectiveness and many recent advances.
If you are a therapist, unless you ar already a CBT therapist I'd suggest there is good reason to be be better informed about CBT.Why? Well, you may well decide that you do want to use CBT as your core method, or at least as one of your main set of methods - after all, we all want to use effective methods. Even if you are one of those that CBT is over-hyped, then finding out more will mean that you are speaking from a more informed position and not attacking a straw man.

So where do you start?
The book that I whole-heartedly recommend is
An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Skills and Applications by David Westbrook, Helen Kennerley and Joan Kirk. It's modern, well-organised and makes a lot of sense - rather ike CBT itself. It includes sections on physical techniques as well as cognitive techniques and behavioural techniques - also useful sections on assessment, socratic method and depression and anxiety.
So that would be my number one recommendation - but below is my complete recommended reading list for therapists who want to find out more about CBT

Westbrook, D Kennerley, H and Kirk, J An introduction to CBT [particularly recommended]
Beck, J Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond
Dryden, W (ed) Brief REBT (Wiley) (good on REBT)
Segal, Z, Williams, M. & Teasdale , J
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing
A large number of CDs and DVDs are available from www.padesky.com and are excellent.

In a future post, I will share my reading list for clients and the general public who are curious about how CBT ideas and methods can help them

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