Let's Talk About CBT Dr Lucy Maddox

We’re back! Let’s Talk about CBT has been on hiatus for a little while but now it is back with a brand-new host Helen Macdonald, the Senior Clinical Advisor for the BABCP.
Each episode Helen will be talking to experts in the different fields of CBT and also to those who have experienced CBT, what it was like for them and how it helped.
This episode Helen is talking to one of the BABCP’s Experts by Experience, Paul Edwards. Paul experienced PTSD after working for many years in the police. He talks to Helen about the first time he went for CBT and what you can expect when you first see a CBT therapist. The conversation covers various topics, including anxiety, depression, phobias, living with a long-term health condition, and the role of measures and outcomes in therapy. In this conversation, Helen MacDonald and Paul discuss the importance of seeking help for mental health struggles and the role of CBT in managing anxiety and other conditions. They also talk about the importance of finding an accredited and registered therapy and how you can find one.
If you liked this episode and want to hear more, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow us at @BABCPpodcasts on X or email us at podcasts@babcp.com.
Useful links:
For more on CBT the BABCP website is www.babcp.com
Accredited therapists can be found at www.cbtregisteruk.com
Credits:
Music is Autmn Coffee by Bosnow from Uppbeat
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/bosnow/autumn-coffee
License code: 3F32NRBYH67P5MIF
 
Transcript:
Helen: Hello, and welcome to Let's Talk About CBT, the podcast where we talk about cognitive and behavioural psychotherapies, what they are, what they can do, and what they can't. I'm Helen Macdonald, your host. I'm the senior clinical advisor for the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies. I'm really delighted today to be joined by Paul Edwards, who is going to talk to us about his experience of CBT.
And Paul, I would like to start by asking you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you.
Paul: Helen, thank you. I guess the first thing it probably is important to tell the listeners is how we met and why I'm talking to you now. So, we originally met about four years ago when you were at the other side of a desk at a university doing an assessment on accreditation of a CBT course, and I was sitting there as somebody who uses his own lived experience, to talk to the students, about what it's like from this side of the fence or this side of the desk or this side of the couch, I suppose, And then from that I was asked if I'd like to apply for a role that was being advertised by the BABCP, as advising as a lived experience person.
And I guess my background is, is a little bit that I actually was diagnosed with PTSD back in 2009 now, as a result of work that I undertook as a police officer and unfortunately, still suffered until 2016 when I had to retire and had to reach out. to another, another psychologist because I'd already had dealings with psychologists, but, they were no longer available to me. And I actually found what was called at the time, the IAPT service, which was the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. And after about 18 months treatment, I said, can I give something back and can I volunteer? And my life just changed. So, we met. Yeah, four years ago, probably now.
Helen: thank you so much, Paul. And we're really grateful to you for sharing those experiences. And you said about having PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and how it ultimately led to you having to retire. And then you found someone who could help. Would you like to just tell us a bit about what someone might not know about being on the receiving end of CBT?
Paul: I feel that actual CBT is like a physiotherapy for the brain. And it's about if you go to the doctors and they diagnose you with a calf strain, they'll send you to the physio and they'll give you a se

The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, the lead organisation for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in the UK and Ireland, is 50 years old this year. In this episode Dr Lucy Maddox explores how CBT has changed over the last 50 years. Lucy speaks to founding members Isaac Marks, Howard Lomas and Ivy Blackburn, previous President David Clark, outgoing President Andrew Beck and incoming President Saiqa Naz about changes through the years and possible future directions for CBT.
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
 
Transcript 
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Hello, my name is Dr Lucy Maddox and this is Let’s Talk about CBT, the podcast brought to you by the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies or BABCP. This episode is a bit unusual, it’s the 50th anniversary of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies this year. And I thought this would be a nice opportunity to explore some of the history of cognitive behavioural therapy, especially the last 50 years.
                                    Some of the roots of CBT can actually be traced way back. Epictetus, an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher wrote that man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them. This is pretty close to one of the main ideas of cognitive behavioural therapy, that it’s the meaning that we give to events, rather than the events themselves which is important. But actually, cognitive behavioural therapy started off without the C. To find out more, I made a few phone calls.
Isaac Marks:               Hello, Isaac Marks here.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Isaac Marks was one of the founding members of BABCP and a key figure in the development of behavioural therapy in Britain. I asked him if he could remember what CBT was like 50 years ago.
Isaac Marks:               Originally it was just BT and a few years later the cognitive was added. At the time, the main psychotherapy was dynamic psychotherapy, sort of Freudian and Jungian. But just a handful of us in Groote Schuur Hospital psychiatric department, that’s in Cape Town, developed an interest in brief psychotherapy. And I was advised if I was really interested in it and I was thinking of taking it up as a sub profession, that I should come to the Maudsley in London.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Isaac and his wife moved to London from South Africa and Isaac studied psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell.
What was it about CBT that had interested you so much?
Isaac Marks:               Because it was a brief psychotherapy, much briefer than the analytic psychodynamic psychotherapy. We were short of therapists and there wasn’t that much money to pay for extended therapy, just a few sessions. Six or eight sessions something like that could achieve all what one needed to. They had quite a lot of article studies.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        And I guess that’s still true today, that those are some of the real standout features of it, aren’t they? That it is a briefer intervention than some other longer-term therapies and that it’s got a really high quality evidence base.
Isaac Marks:               I think that’s probably true, yes.
Howard Lomas:          There was a group that met at the Middlesex Hospital every month. And that was set up by the likes of Vic Meyer, Isaac Marks, Derek Jayhugh.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        That’s Howard Lomas, another founding member of BABCP remembering how the organisation got set up 50 years ago from lots of different interest groups coming together.
Howard Lomas:          These various groups that got together and said, “Why don’t we have a national organisation?” So that was formed back in 1972.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Howard’s professional background was different to Isaac’s psychiat

In this bonus episode of Let's Talk About CBT, hear Dr Lucy Maddox interview Dr Tom Ward and Angie about SlowMo: digitally supported face-to-face CBT for paranoia combined with a mobile app for use in daily life.
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
 
Transcript
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk about CBT, the podcast from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, BABCP. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not, and how it can be useful. In this episode, I’ll be finding out about an exciting new blended therapy, SlowMo, for people who are experiencing paranoia.
This digitally supported therapy has been developed over 10 years with a team of people including designers from the Royal College of Art in London, a team of people who have experienced paranoia. And a team of clinical researchers, including Professor Philippa Garety, Dr Amy Hardy and Dr Tom Ward.
The design of this intervention really prioritised the experience of people using the therapy in what’s called a design led approach. To understand more I video called Tom Ward, research clinical psychologist based in Kings College London, and I had a phone call with Angie, who’s experienced using the therapy. Here’s Angie’s story.
Angie:                          I mean, I’ve had psychosis for many years. About 20 years ago I was really poorly, I was in and out of hospital. Going back about 20 years ago they kept giving me different diagnoses and I expect everybody else had the same thing. Anyway, then I met a psychiatrist and I was with him for over 20 years until he retired. And he really helped me a lot, I was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Part of me was really scared and another part of me was sort of relieved that I knew that I was dealing with. I get voices, sometimes I see or feel things that aren’t really there. But part of my diagnosis is I also get very depressed. And when I get very depressed, that’s when the voices are at their worst because I haven’t got the strength to sort of fight them off, if you like.
If I’m having a good day, then I can use the skills I’ve learnt in the past to not listen to the voices and to have a reasonably good day. If I’m having a bad day and it’s a duvet day, then that’s when I really suffer with the voices. Unless you can actually accept that you have this issue, and you actually accept that you need the help, it doesn’t matter what they do to help you, you’re just not going to take it on board.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        Angie wanted some help, specifically with paranoid thoughts she was experiencing about people looking at her or laughing at her. She found out about the SlowMo trial and applied to be a part of it. And ended up being one of the very first people to try the therapy. Tom led on the delivery of therapy in the trial.
Dr Tom Ward:              I’ve worked and have worked for the last couple of years trying to develop and test digital interventions for people experiencing psychosis. So I’ve been involved in developing interventions that help people who are experiencing distressing voices. And been involved in work in a therapy called avatar therapy and more recently I’ve been working with colleagues to develop an intervention designed to help people who are experiencing fear of harm from others, which we would sometimes refer to as paranoia.
Dr Lucy Maddox:        In case listeners wonder what avatar therapy is could you just briefly say what that is?
Dr Tom Ward:              So in avatar therapy, digital technology is used with the person to create a representation of the distressing voice that they hear. So we work with the person to create an avatar which has an image which matches the image the person has of their distressing voice. And which comes to sound like the voice that they hear. And we use thi

Children don't come with a manual, and parenting can be hard. What is evidence-based parenting training and how can it help? Dr Lucy Maddox interviews Sue Howson and Jane, about their experiences of delivering and receiving this intervention for parents of primary school aged children. 
Show Notes and Transcript
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
Sue and Jane both recommended this book:
The Incredible Years (R): Trouble Shooting Guide for Parents of Children Aged 3-8 Years
By Carolyn Webster-Stratton (Author)
Sue also recommended this book:
Helping the Noncompliant Child Family-Based Treatment for Oppositional Behaviour  Robert J. McMahon, Rex L.Forehand 2nd Edition Paperback (01 Sep 2005)  ISBN 978-1593852412

Websites
http://www.incredibleyears.com/
https://theministryofparenting.com/
https://www.nurturingmindsconsultancy.co.uk/
For more on CBT the BABCP website is www.babcp.com
Accredited therapists can be found at www.cbtregisteruk.com
 
Courses
The courses where Sue works are available here, and there are similar courses around the country:
https://www.reading.ac.uk/charliewaller/cwi-iapt.aspx
 
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
This episode was edited by Eliza Lomas
 
Transcript
Lucy:   Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk About CBT, the podcast from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, BABCP. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not and how it can be useful.
This episode is the last in the current series so we’ll be having a break for a bit, apart from a cheeky bonus episode, which is planned for a few months’ time so look out for that.
Today, I’m finding out about evidence-based parenting training. This is a type of intervention for the parents of primary school aged children. It draws on similar principles to cognitive behavioural therapy about links between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and bodily sensations and ideas from social learning theory. It also draws some ideas from child development such as attachment theory and parenting styles.
To understand more about all of this, I met with Sue Howson, parenting practitioner who works in child mental health services and Jane, a parent who has experienced the training herself.
Jane:  My name is Jane and I’ve got a little boy called Jack who is seven and he’s in Year 3.
Lucy:  And you’ve experienced evidence-based parenting training, is that right?
Jane:  Yeah, I have. It’s something called the Incredible Years. And there was a really nice lady called Sue and my school put us in touch to form a group to kind of help me manage Jack a little bit more at home.
Lucy:  So, your journey into it was that the school let you know about it?
Jane:  Yeah. Basically, I was having a few issues with Jack at home and I think it was kind of impacting on school as well. So, I was working with the special needs coordinator and she, obviously, had me, Jack and my family in mind as someone who might benefit from working a little bit with Sue.
 I was a bit nervous at first, you know, like professionals coming in, getting involved. But she was really nice and it was really beneficial.
Lucy: Is it okay to ask what sort of difficulties you were having at home, sort of what was going on?
Jane:  Yeah, I can tell you now because it’s all changed, it’s much better.
Lucy:  Oh good, that’s great to hear.
Jane:    I mean, Jack’s a lovely boy. He’s my eldest and he’s really nice and just a bit of a joy – he is now. But I think one of the main things that I was struggling with, with him, was kind of difficulties with falling asleep. In the evenings, he would always want me to fall asleep either next to him or in his bed and that was kind of impacting on our evening, mine and my husband’s quite a lot. And it was taking up a lot of time and I think evenings are quite hard because you’re so tired and you just want to go to bed.
So, that wa

In this episode Dr Lucy Maddox speaks to Sharon and Dr Anne Garland, about CBT for depression. Hear how Sharon describes it, and how both group and individual therapy helped. 
Show Notes and Transcript
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
Books
Overcoming Depression by Paul Gilbert
Podcast Episodes
CBT for Perfectionism
Compassion Focussed Therapy
Websites
www.babcp.com
www.cbtregisteruk.com
Image by Kevin Mueller on Unsplash
Transcript
 
Lucy: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk About CBT, the podcast from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, BABCP. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not and how it can be useful.  

In this episode we’re thinking about CBT for depression. I spoke with Dr Anne Garland who spent 25 years working with people who experience depression and Sharon, who has experienced it herself.  

Both Anne and Sharon come from a nursing background. Anne now works at the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre as a consultant psychotherapist, but she used to work in Nottingham, which is where Sharon had CBT for depression. Here’s Sharon.  

How would you describe what depression is like?  

Sharon: When I was going to school, when I was a little girl, an infant, we would have to go over the fields because I lived in the country, and go down. I could hear the bell of the junior school but couldn’t find it because of the fog. I walked round and round, I was five, walked round and round and round in those fields trying to get to the bell where I knew I would be safe and being terrified on my own. And that’s how it feels actually. Darkness, cold, very frightening.  

Lucy: I asked Anne how depression gets diagnosed and she described a range of symptoms.  

Anne: In its acute phase it’s characterised by what would be considered a range of symptoms. So, tiredness, lethargy, lack of motivation, poor concentration, difficulty remembering. Some of the most debilitating symptoms are often disturbed sleep and absence of any sense of enjoyment or pleasure in life and that can be very distressing to people. People can be really plagued with suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness that life is pointless.  

I think one of the most devastating things about depression as an illness is it robs people of their ability to do everyday things. So for example, getting up, getting dressed, getting washed, deciding what you want to wear can all be really impaired by the symptoms of depression. I try and help people to understand that the symptoms are real, they’re not imagined. Often people will tell me that they imagine these things or that they aren’t real and that it’s all in their mind.  

Their symptoms are real, they exist in the body and do exert a really detrimental effect on just your ability to do what most of us take for granted on a day-to-day basis.  

Lucy: And so it’s a lot more than sadness isn’t it? 

Anne: Absolutely. It can be very profound feelings of sadness but often that’s amplified by feelings of extreme guilt, of shame, anger and anxiety is another common feature of depression.  

Also, when people are very profoundly depressed they can actually just feel numb and feel nothing and that in itself can be very distressing because things that might normally move you to feel a real sense of connection. Say for example your children or your grandchildren, you may have no feelings whatsoever, and that in itself can be very alarming to people. 

Lucy: The way that depression and its treatment are thought about can vary depending on who you speak to. Just like with other sorts of mental health problems. More biological viewpoints prioritise thinking about brain changes that can occur with depression while more social perspectives prioritise thinking about the context that people are part of.  

Anne: As CBT tends to take a more pragmatic view of t

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems, but there's a good evidence-base for CBT as a helpful intervention. In this podcast, Dr Lucy Maddox speaks with Dr Blake Stobie and Claire Read, about what CBT for anxiety is like, and how anxious thoughts can be like the circle line. 
Show Notes and Transcript
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
Websites
BABCP
https://www.babcp.com
Accredited register of CBT therapists
https://www.cbtregisteruk.com
Anxiety UK
https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk
NICE guidelines on anxiety
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs53
Apps
Claire recommended the Thought Diary Pro app as being helpful to use in conjunction with therapy to complete thought records. 
https://www.good-thinking.uk/resources/thought-diary-pro/
Books
Claire recommended this workbook on Overcoming Low Self Esteem by Melanie Fennell https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Low-Self-Esteem-Self-help-Course/dp/1845292375/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=self+esteem+workbook+melanie+fennell&qid=1605884391&s=books&sr=1-2
And this book by Helen Kennerley on Overcoming Anxiety is part of the same series
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Anxiety-Books-Prescription-Title/dp/1849018782/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=overcoming+anxiety&qid=1605884437&s=books&sr=1-1
Credits
Image used is by Robert Tudor from Unsplash
Podcast episode produced and edited by Lucy Maddox for BABCP
Transcript
 
Lucy: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk About CBT, the podcast from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, BABCP. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not and how it can be useful.  

In this episode we’re thinking about CBT for depression. I spoke with Dr Anne Garland who spent 25 years working with people who experience depression and Sharon, who has experienced it herself.  

Both Anne and Sharon come from a nursing background. Anne now works at the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre as a consultant psychotherapist, but she used to work in Nottingham, which is where Sharon had CBT for depression. Here’s Sharon.  

How would you describe what depression is like?  

Sharon: When I was going to school, when I was a little girl, an infant, we would have to go over the fields because I lived in the country, and go down. I could hear the bell of the junior school but couldn’t find it because of the fog. I walked round and round, I was five, walked round and round and round in those fields trying to get to the bell where I knew I would be safe and being terrified on my own. And that’s how it feels actually. Darkness, cold, very frightening.  

Lucy: I asked Anne how depression gets diagnosed and she described a range of symptoms.  

Anne: In its acute phase it’s characterised by what would be considered a range of symptoms. So, tiredness, lethargy, lack of motivation, poor concentration, difficulty remembering. Some of the most debilitating symptoms are often disturbed sleep and absence of any sense of enjoyment or pleasure in life and that can be very distressing to people. People can be really plagued with suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness that life is pointless.  

I think one of the most devastating things about depression as an illness is it robs people of their ability to do everyday things. So for example, getting up, getting dressed, getting washed, deciding what you want to wear can all be really impaired by the symptoms of depression. I try and help people to understand that the symptoms are real, they’re not imagined. Often people will tell me that they imagine these things or that they aren’t real and that it’s all in their mind.  

Their symptoms are real, they exist in the body and do exert a really detrimental effect on just your ability to do what most of us take for granted on a day-to-day basis.  

Lucy: And so it’s a lot more than sadness isn’t it? 

Anne: Absolutely. It