Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Training – ACT for Anxiety – FULLY BOOKED

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By Nick Cooke

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) certified professional training with a key focus on assisting those with anxiety

"… irrespective of the number of symptoms we have, or how serious those are, provided that we respond to them in a mindful way we will feel happier and better able to function. Unwanted symptoms do ‘miraculously’ tend to reduce, even though this is not the primary aim!"

It was Sigmund Freud who famously described anxiety as ‘fear spread thinly. What a lot of sense this continues to make in our present day and age. However, Freud’s belief about the causes of anxiety and his method of treatment varies widely from present day understanding and treatment. Freud’s work was predicated on theories of how sufferers would have ‘repressed’ (hidden from conscious awareness) the causes of symptoms, including anxiety, and that repressed memories connected to the originating causes would be released and brought to conscious awareness, understanding and release through his famous ‘talking cure’, psychoanalysis. We discuss this approach in our Mindfulness Based Clinical Hypnosis (MBCH) training. www.mbch.org.uk

Scientific evidence since the 1980s has shown that many talking therapies including clinical hypnosis, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based therapies, can be effective in dealing with the symptoms of anxiety. One of the most successful approaches is ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which is pronounced as the word ‘act’ for good reason. It’s about taking action. It was developed in the USA by psychologist Steve Hayes, along with his colleagues Kelly Wilson and Kirk Strosahl. The original body of work has been further developed and expanded by others, including Dr Russ Harris who has authored a number of well-respected books including the self-help guide ‘The Happiness Trap’.

Steve Hayes, describes ACT as an ‘oddly counterintuitive model of work’. It can be engaging and playful and teaches us skills to handle unwanted and painful thoughts and feelings in a way in which they have far less significance or negative affect. This is where mindfulness skills are brought into play. It also takes the view that, irrespective of the number of symptoms we have, or how serious those are, provided that we respond to them in a mindful way we will feel happier and better able to function. Unwanted symptoms do ‘miraculously’ tend to reduce, even though this is not the primary aim!

ACT has been scientifically researched and proven to be effective in helping people with a wide range of issues including: anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Even those with severe psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia have gained remarkable benefit. It has also produced similarly high levels of success with some of the less serious conditions which we may encounter in our day-to-day work, such as smoking cessation, weight reduction and reducing stress. The high level of supporting scientific evidence has ensured that ACT has grown in popularity as a form of psychological treatment around the world.

30 years in the making

It’s taken a while to get there. The original development of ACT was around 30 years ago and yet it was not until nearer to 10 years ago when it began to find its current high level of popularity. There are a number of reasons for this delayed enthusiasm:

• 30 years ago ACT seemed to fly in the face of conventional psychological theory in the sense that most approaches aimed to reduce unwanted symptoms. ACT takes a very different approach and one that is much more focussed on the idea that quality of life is primarily dependent upon mindful, values-guided action
• ACT is a mindfulness based intervention and 30 years ago these were in their infancy and seen as a little way out!
• The original writings on ACT were peer reviewed as being ‘overly complex’. Heavy on rather complicated theory but light on practicalities

The ACT acronym

ACT is sometimes seen as a rather large model but the real beauty of it is the way that it can be simplified and easily explainable to clients. I favour this very simple acronym which sums it up neatly.

A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present.

C = Choose a valued direction

D = Take action!

Key themes of ACT include developing psychological flexibility, encouraging self-awareness and examining beliefs and values. Here we encourage our clients, rather like we would in a coaching exercise, to explore their innermost beliefs and values. What would they live and die for? What would they say is their life purpose? Translating this into a behavioural context, what qualities of ongoing action matter? How do clients want to behave on an ongoing basis?

Clients are taught how to ‘defuse’, or separate from their unwanted thoughts, emotions and mental pictures. They learn how to observe them more passively or step back and view them from a distance, rather like clouds passing by in the sky. ACT employs a number of different styles of metaphor, which are often a great way of teaching clients in an indirect and more acceptable manner.

Nick Cooke is presenting a one-day CPD training on ACT for Anxiety on Saturday 24th May 2024. Being presented in a live, interactive format on Zoom, timings are 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM. The fee is £130 to NCH members and £160 to non-members. Places are strictly limited so please book early by contacting Rachel at Mindfulness Now (CEC) on 0121 444 1110 or emailing info@mindfulnessnow.org.uk

Mini-retirement – What’s it all about

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This little article contains my personal perspective on a, so called, mini-retirement – what’s it all about, the differences between it and a full retirement and between it and a holiday. Why should we do it? – are there rules for it? Is it a requirement to be old? Lastly some tips from someone who’s done it.

I originally trained in marketing and environmental science and took my first mini-retirement of 4 weeks after selling my share in a garment hanger reuse and recycling business which colleagues and I set up in my 30s to help M&S to meet its environmental obligations. The work was hugely stressful, and I was very glad of some down time.

Since then, I’ve come to really appreciate the value of the mini-retirement, of at least a few weeks, hopefully at least once a year. As I entered my 60s, with a successful practice in wellbeing and education, including my own clinic and training centre, I naturally considered retirement. However, I decided that, as long as I was well enough and loved my work, there was no point. In fact, I’ve known a number of others who have deeply regretted their retirement and not fared well with it.

In my case I’ve been fortunate enough to streamline my practice, partly due to the COVID lockdown, including selling my clinic and training centre and transitioning into the world of hybrid working, with a combination of online and in-person work.

Being part of a team makes the concept of mini-retirements more workable although, for those of us self-employed, we have to accept that other than any residual income, our mini-retirement will cost us financially. The financial loss will be fully compensated for by a period of freedom, rest and recharge, along with hopefully some new learning.

To me, holidays are normally very brief breaks and easy to arrange. They don’t get in the way of my client schedules. Mini-retirements, by contrast are much more of a challenge and require the cooperation and understanding of clients/participants and colleagues.

I strongly suggest that we don’t fall into the trap of believing that because we are fortunate to love what we do, that it is not real work and therefore we don’t need breaks. I have to admit that sometimes, over the years, I have been absolutely rubbish at taking breaks and I’m pretty sure that, on more than one occasion, it has had a serious negative impact upon my health.

Of course, these days there are numerous holidays which are advertised as ‘mindful’ holidays – whether that’s painting, river cruising or writing. Personally, I think that any holiday can be a mindful one as long as we stay with the experience of it.  One of my colleagues tells me that he is brave enough for he and his partner to go to the airport with only passports and credit cards and then select a departure destination from the announcement board and buy tickets! As he said to me ‘the worst that can happen is that we end up going back home, and at its best we find an exciting new adventure’.

This same friend was horrified when I told him that I normally take my laptop computer on holiday with me (well surely it deserves a holiday too?). Sometimes I enjoy spending some time writing and find that being in a fresh, enjoyable location can inspire some creativity (my grandchildren are not at all impressed with this)! So, I think that the rule should be… not to have rules. Let nobody tell us what we should or should not do, and just see what happens.

Good luck with taking your breaks, however they happen and, you never know, maybe see you on the beach sometime! I’ll probably be the only one with a laptop computer as well as an ice cream!!

www.mindfulnessnow.org.uk

Why I Love Blue Monday

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Yes, today is the, so called, ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday of January, which in 2019 is the 21st of the month and I’m told by certain ‘experts’ that I’m likely to be miserable, worried and possibly depressed, for a number of reasons.

 

I will have failed my New Year resolutions by now. I’m maxed out on my credit cards after the big Christmas spend. The nights are long, the days are short. I’m not getting enough daylight. I’m feeling cold and I most likely have a cold that doesn’t seem to go away. My diet has failed and I put weight on over the past month. My holidays seem to be as long away as they could be. My clients are too ill to make the journey to come and see me. What else could possibly go wrong?

 

Hang on a mo!! – I’m sitting in the Bryant Room at the beautiful Midland’s Arts Centre in Birmingham, overlooking the lakes and the park. It’s very early and the sun is rising and the sky has a blueish tinge. The ducks and geese are tuning up their voices. This is the start of my ‘Blue Monday’. I’m setting up training manuals, pads and pens, looking at my list of participants and feeling a deep sense of gratitude – eagerly anticipating greeting my fellow trainers, Rachel and Aston and all of our new trainees.

 

Mindfulness is a way of life that I’m very privileged to enjoy, to teach, and to train others how to teach. Our training has come a very long way from a humble beginning, 6 years ago to now being internationally recognised, attracting students from 11 countries, externally accredited and probably the most successful training course in the UK, training in 7 different locations. Teachers who have graduated from the Mindfulness Now programme work in many diverse environments including within the NHS, who have funded many students places. Others work in the charity sector, in schools and in commercial organisations. Many are therapists who wish to increase their range of skills.

 

Not gloating or being complacent, or taking anything for granted. Just a sense of amazement really and an immense amount of gratitude. Mind you – I do have a cold!

 

Happy Blue Monday

 

Nick Cooke

Take the Leisure Track to Learning to become a Mindfulness Teacher

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Due to popular demand, our Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training course is now going to be running on a weekend basis starting in the Autumn.

Mindfulness Meditation is the most popular course that Central England College runs and we’re frequently having to add people to the waiting lists so this will be a welcome addition to the college’s timetable! The course content is exactly the same as the Monday to Friday version but taught over the course of 3 weekends, each separated by a month.

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Why EQ can be more important than IQ and how the practice of mindfulness can help to develop Emotional Resilience

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Emotional intelligence (EI) can be thought of as the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. Having a high level of emotional intelligence can be far more useful in helping us to have a happy, healthy and stable life, than any amount of traditional, cognitive – problem solving intelligence (IQ).

In 1983, Howard Gardner’s ‘Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences’, introduced the idea of multiple intelligences which included both interpersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people) and intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one’s feelings, fears and motivations). In Gardner’s view, traditional types of intelligence, such as IQ, fail to fully explain cognitive ability.

Although the concept of EI was introduced in the 1920s, it was popularised by Daniel Goleman’s 1995, best-selling self-help book ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Here, Goleman focuses on EI as a wide array of competencies and skills (mixed model) that contribute significantly to our ability to ‘succeed’ in life, to be self-motivated, emotionally resilient and to relate successfully to others.

A couple of years ago I worked with a client who, from a very early age was academically brilliant, a national chess champion at 10 years old, gained a scholarship to a top public school, gained a science 1st at Cambridge and went on to become a highly successful and respected academic. Her issues in consulting me were that she was unable to form close personal relationships, loneliness and social phobia which meant she was finding it very difficult to function other than in her university laboratory. She really seemed to have no life at all outside her work and was starting to become very negative.

I started a process of helping my client to explore in an open and honest way, her negative emotional states and to begin a self-healing process that I call ‘natural healing’. This involves examining what it is that you really want in life and formulating a plan to move towards it. At the same time finding ways to admit and to express to yourself the truths and the hurt of the present reality. Natural therapy also involves accepting and forgiving yourself and others. Its tools include gaining and changing perspective, laughter and relaxation both in the form of self-hypnosis and mindfulness meditation.

Successful therapy is always a collaboration between therapist and client and learning the skills of emotional resilience is no exception. I like to think of therapy as a process of teaching the client, rather than doing something to the client. Clients learn, over the course of a few sessions, how to let go of unwanted feelings, interrupt unwanted emotional patterns and learn ways of cultivating nourishing emotions such as curiosity, excitement, flexibility, confidence and determination, as well as gratitude and appreciation.

Scientific research has demonstrated that people engaged in mindfulness practice over a period of 6 to 8 weeks boosted their resilience ‘scores’ by more than 38%. The results were very clearly demonstrated and participants stated that they felt happier, with more energy and less stress than before the programme. They also reported that they started to identify challenges as opportunities rather than threats and had a higher level of optimism.

In his trainings Anthony Robbins describes ways of ‘mastering your emotions’ which I’ve found very beneficial in teaching emotional resilience. I ask my clients to focus on a number of key steps:

  1. Identify just what the emotion is, and what it’s telling them that they need to act on.
  2. Clarify just what message the emotion contains and whether they need to change their perception of it, or their behaviours in respect of it.
  3. Recall a previous experience of this emotion which they managed to successfully overcome. Recall the success state and anchor it.
  4. Experiment with imagining different ways of dealing with this emotion until they find one that works well – then take action!

There will be times when clients are locked into patterns of emotional trauma where it appears that there is no way out. In that situation nowhere feels safe and nothing feels any good. Life loses its sparkle and often people experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have frequent upsetting flashbacks of traumatic memories which just seem to come ‘out of the blue’.

The most successful ways of helping clients with emotional trauma seem to come from the category of approaches that can best be described as mind/body interventions which employ a kinaesthetic , sensory input. These are described by Dr Ronald Ruden in his book ‘When The Past is Always Present’ as ‘psychosensory therapy’, and it includes his ground breaking approach ‘Havening ™’. These kinds of approaches can be described as truly holistic and I’ve found that EFT and EMDR can be particularly helpful. The most recent development in this field is Kevin Laye’s Psy Tap, which seems to be achieving remarkable results.

EI and Resilience Building is part of the syllabus of the UK College, accredited mindfulness teacher training course – run on a regular basis. www.mindfulnessnow.org.uk