Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2nd Edition

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Title page
3. Contents
4. About the author
5. Author’s acknowledgements
6. Publisher’s acknowledgements
7. 1 So what’s so brilliant about CBT?
   1. The origins of CBT: giving Freud the slip
   2. Pause for thought
   3. Why is CBT so popular?
   4. Will it work for me?
   5. Expand your emotional vocabulary
   6. How did you do?
   7. Now read on…
8. 2 First principles
   1. Principle 1: There is always another point of view
   2. Principle 2: Events don’t cause our feelings
   3. Match the feeling to the thought
   4. Principle 3: We all evolve characteristic ways of seeing the world
   5. The formative years
   6. Sometimes once is enough!
   7. Principle 4: It’s a two-way street
   8. Principle 5: We are all scientists at heart
   9. So now you know…
9. 3 Common thinking traps – and how to avoid them
   1. Think in terms of sliding scales
   2. Thinking error 8: emotive language
   3. How brilliant are you at spotting thinking errors?
   4. Homework: getting personal
10. 4 Grappling with negative thinking
    1. Look for exceptions to the rule
    2. Give your ‘but’ a workout
    3. Aim at the right target
    4. Stand it on its head
    5. See the situation through fresh eyes
    6. Ask yourself: ‘How did I come to believe this in the first place?’
    7. How helpful is this belief?
    8. Say it is so… What can you do about it?
    9. Once more with feeling!
    10. Working with thought records
    11. So how do they work?
    12. Homework: making a start with thought records
11. 5 Using behaviour to change your mind
    1. Why is experience our best teacher?
    2. Why behavioural experiments are so helpful
    3. Dropping ‘safety’ behaviours that make things worse
    4. Identifying your own safety behaviours
    5. Devising behavioural experiments that work
    6. Turning your thoughts into predictions
    7. Decide how you are going to measure your results
    8. Experimenting with safety behaviours
    9. A conundrum
    10. Challenging symptom-based predictions
    11. Experimenting with assumptions underlying your NATs
    12. What do I do if the results of my experiments actually end up supporting my negative belief?
    13. Homework: devise your own experiment
12. 6 Mapping out your problems
    1. Seven brilliant reasons to start formulating
    2. What’s your problem?
    3. Pulling it all together
    4. Strategies for accessing hot thoughts
    5. Peter’s short fuse
    6. Identifying the hot thoughts
    7. Revising your formulation in the light of new evidence
    8. Possible interventions
    9. Elaborating the formulation
    10. Homework: make a start on your own formulation
13. 7 Beating the blues
    1. Are you depressed?
    2. A word about drugs
    3. Beck’s model of depression
    4. How depressed people think
    5. Maintaining factors in depression
    6. Cognitive strategies for tackling depression
    7. Living in the moment: the ‘eat-a-peach’ challenge
    8. Behavioural strategies for tackling depression
14. 8 Conquering anxiety
    1. What is anxiety?
    2. Checklist of common anxiety symptoms
    3. Why do people suffer from anxiety?
    4. Triggers
    5. Top ten life stressors
    6. Maintaining factors in anxiety conditions
    7. Getting physical
    8. Harness the power of breathing
    9. Facing your fears
    10. Work your way up the ladder of fear
    11. Imaginal exposure
    12. Anxious thinking
    13. What are the odds?
    14. Fear of fear
    15. Develop a stress-busting lifestyle
15. 9 Taming anger
    1. How to get yourself really worked up
    2. What’s making Malcolm mad?
    3. Better out than in?
    4. Are your beliefs about your anger holding you back?
    5. Inflexible people are more likely to snap
    6. Five beliefs you may need to challenge
    7. The mind–body connection
    8. Learn to recognise your body’s anger signature
    9. Establish what pushes your buttons
    10. Plan ahead
    11. Why improved communication skills can help you stay in control
    12. Getting to the roots of your anger
    13. Dealing with predisposing factors from childhood
    14. Do I have to forgive?
    15. Believe it or not, most of us are doing our best
16. 10 Boosting self-esteem
    1. ‘I told you I would stuff up’
    2. Understanding the cycle of low self-esteem
    3. Breaking the rules
    4. Are your rules helping you?
    5. So how do you change the rules?
    6. Choose your own values
    7. No more Mr Nice Guy!
    8. The origins of low self-worth
    9. Reworking formative memories
    10. Further techniques to repair your self-image
    11. Look after yourself
    12. Become an assertive communicator
    13. Don’t allow yourself to be thwarted
    14. Reframe your ‘failures’ in a more positive light
    15. Try a little tenderness
    16. Be careful how you speak to yourself
    17. A compassion-based meditation to try for yourself
17. 11 Breaking the cycle: using CBT to overcome addictions and destructive habits
    1. Understanding the ties that bind – what is addictive behaviour?
    2. What’s the payoff?
    3. Is there such a thing as an addictive personality?
    4. Introducing the cognitive model of addiction
    5. Getting ready to change
    6. Stage one: precontemplation
    7. Stage two: contemplation
    8. Stage three: action
    9. Habit-proof your environment
    10. In case of emergency break glass!
    11. Create your own top ten
    12. Stage four: maintenance
    13. Stage five: relapse
18. Afterword: over to you now
19. References and further reading
    1. General
20. Useful websites
21. Appendix 1 Brilliant directory of online CBT courses, computer-based tools and smartphone applications
22. Appendix 2 Example of a thought record
23. Appendix 3 Blank forms and thought record templates
24. Appendix 4 What to do if it’s not working
    1. A brilliant troubleshooting guide
25. Index
26. Marketing advertisement
27. Imprint