CBT for Psychosis & Trauma & Psychosis Handouts
Below are links to a number of handouts I give out at my seminars, along with descriptions of each:
Key Points – describes some of the key features of cognitive therapy for psychosis
Resources for CBT for Psychosis – lists many books and some websites that are either directly about cognitive therapy for psychosis, or present related approaches.
Resources for trauma and psychosis – lists books, articles & websites specifically about the intersection of trauma and psychosis.
Coping with Voices List: this is a collection of coping ideas people have used for voices.
Spectrum of Voices: This handout describes the continuum between “normal thoughts” and “voices,” by listing a variety of intermediate phenomena, from intrusive thoughts to “channeling.”
Stories of kids and voices: Some short case examples offering hope to anyone working with kids. Note the key intervention is just to get the kids to use their imagination in a positive way to counter troublesome voices.
How can we tell whether our suspicious thoughts are justified: A great one page handout encouraging more thoughtfulness about suspicious thoughts (paranoia)!
Common misconceptions: this handout compares common or traditional beliefs about schizophrenia and psychosis with the cognitive therapy perspective.
Safety Behavior Comparison: This handout shows how the current approach to neuroleptics is based on the same kind of faulty logic as that used by many people with psychological problems: the system focuses on short term benefit while ignoring long term problems.
Participatory Approach Neuroleptics: This article explains why a new approach to neuroleptic (“antipsychotic”) medication is needed, and then describes some features of a new approach.
Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs is written to help consumers compare risks of staying on psychiatric drugs with the risks of reducing or getting off them, and then to provide information for those who may choose to attempt to reduce or discontinue the drugs.
How I tamed the voices in my head: An article, including a good case example, that explains some new perspectives on voice hearing.
The Mad Doctor Rufus May: this is an inspiring story of a once “hopeless schizophrenic” who ignored the doom-sayers, became a PhD psychologist and now an international leader in alternative approaches.
Diagram on healthy emotions: This handout illustrates a middle way between being either being dominated by or attempting to block out, both emotions and voices.
A fairly recent article in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 163:365-373, March 2006 was written by two of the leaders in the cognitive therapy for psychosis field, introducing the method to an American audience.
Paranoia: the website. Lots of information, personal experiences, and coping ideas.
Fidelity with cognivite therapy for psychosis: This is a fidelity scale for use with cognitive therapy for psychosis.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for the info…=)
Thanks for the work you have put into puttin all of this together. I currently have the opportunity workign with three young individuals that have more recently been shoing symptoms of schizophrenia. I rally dont want to screw them up, and do not see that meds are the only solution. But, I need help. Any suggestions. RA
Hi Randy,
I appreciate your sense of needing help in order to help others. But it wasn’t clear from your message exactly what kind of help you were looking for.
I think it’s best when mental health workers are part of a team that is all committed to work together to find non-drug options where possible, as does the Open Dialogue approach. Even if you don’t work directly with a team that believes in such an approach, it can help to have supportive relationships with people who themselves have some interest in a more psychological approach to the problems that get labeled “psychosis” or “schizophrenia.” Being part of a study group or professional organization like ISPS-US http://www.isps-us.org/ can help, as it puts you in contact with people who are going through similar things.
If you were looking for specific information, I don’t know if I could help you or not, I would need to know what you are looking for……
My son is newly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He is in denial and has been extremely difficult to deal with. He has finally agreed to take a low dose of neuroleptic (Abilify) for three weeks. I don’t know if this is the right route to take, but his behavior is becoming more erratic and he is refusing any type of therapy. I would rather he not take any sort of meds, any suggestions for getting him to agree to therapy?
Hi Cheryl,
A few suggestions that could help:
Ask him about his reasons for not going, and really listen to him about them before you start providing any ideas aimed at getting him to reconsider.
It’s possible he would be open to going to therapy if he thought a really understanding person was available, but just doesn’t believe this can happen. So you could ask him about what type of person he might be willing to talk to if such a person were available. Then see if you can find someone like that.
Suggest he consider just meeting with a therapist, or possibly with you and the therapist, just to talk about how therapy might go and the pros and cons of it, if he were to decide to actually engage in therapy.
Or you could tell him that you want to do family therapy, invite him along, if he doesn’t go, just go yourself and explore in more depth what might work.
All this presumes you actually have access to a therapist who knows how to work with the sorts of experiences that get called “psychotic” – which unfortunately is not true in many areas. Wishing you well with your son and your family…….
Hi Ron, got to tell I love the work you do, do have anything, any articles on behavioral activation and getting people with so-called “schizophrenia” “psychosis” to accomplish like basic ADL’s? Much appreciated.
When people just don’t seem to be doing very much, that gets called a “negative symptom” – medical model people see it as caused by the “illness” but CBT people see it has having possibly a number of causes, and as possibly reversible.
Here’s a brief video of Aaron Beck discussing the research he participated in where they helped people who had severe negative symptoms make very significant improvements. Simple methods, but really important in overcoming severe demoralization by people who had been hospitalized etc. for years. Beck and his team started with this research thinking that people could function at a higher level despite their apparent deficits in basic mental abilities – however, not surprisingly to me, they found that once the people were functioning at a higher level, those deficits in mental abilities seemed to themselves be shrinking.
http://www.beckinstituteblog.org/2011/12/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-for-schizophrenia/
I really like what I’ve been reading on your site. I notice that you’re doing workshops in Portland, Berkeley, and Seattle. Any chance you might want to come to Nelson, British Columbia to do a workshop on working with psychosis through CBT? Nelson is a 3 hours drive north of Spokane, WA.
Irene
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