Mindfulness Based Therapies

3rd Wave Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT+, is a British Psychological Society approved approach to work with a range of disorders bringing together disparate therapies such as Mindfulness; ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy); CFT (Compassion Focused Therapy); DBT (Dialectic Behavioural Therapy).  

In addition to the  Mindfulness approach, elements of the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach are considered but rather than the standard CBT focus on thoughts, beliefs and attitudes (which ultimately affect our feelings and behaviours), CBT + brings feelings, acceptance and compassion into play rather than being driven by judgements and reactions to those thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.  

CBT+ sessions are bespoke to the individual and will include elements from the therapies below:

Mindfulness:

Being 'Mindful' is focusing on the present moment and as we do so being aware and calmly acknowledging any thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations without judgement, it is about suspending our tendency to 'being right', it is about just being.  Mindfulness can be undertaken as a stand-alone therapy to help reduce anxiety, depression, pain or used in conjunction with hypnotherapy. It is an integral part of ACT, CFT and DBT therapies.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT as the name suggests focuses on the processes the acceptance of a situation, ie not to eliminate difficult feelings, rather learning to be present with those feelings (acceptance) without acting upon the feelings or avoiding those feelings.   The commitment to change behaviours which will better serve values set by the client as part of this process.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT):

Developed by Professor Paul Gilbert CFT has a broad scientific approach.  As CFT is guided by science it is constantly developing as scientific evidence is made available.  CFT is suitable for those clients who struggling with shame and are very self critical.  The essence is to introduce self compassion in order to help to activate more positive emotions.

Dialetical Behaviour Therapy (DBT):

Developed by Marsha Linehan at the University of Seattle originally for Borderline Personality Disorder and for those clients who self harm.  The therapy has recently been approved for multi-disorder clients.  DBT is about balancing acceptance and change and the component parts of this therapy include commitment to change ie behaviours, and skills training to effect this change, this includes emotional regulation and distress tolerance.