In yesterday's post on "Keeping up with the literature", I wrote about the wealth of updated knowledge that has emerged with publication of the third UK National Survey of of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) and about useful qualitative research on why most health professionals (including psychotherapists) tend to be poor at providing help for sexual difficulties.  I would now like to say a little about some new findings in exposure therapy, and some additional insights into mindfulness, relaxation & reappraisal.  

This is an extended, online, hyperlinked version of a regular quarterly column - "Keeping up with the literature" - that I write for "CBT Today, the official magazine of the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies".  In October's column, I commented that new CBT-relevant research flows past constantly like a great river.  I track forty to fifty different journals - many more than most sensible health professionals try to monitor - but this is still just a small subsection of the multitude of potentially relevant publications.  And if I get behind with my reading, a wave of literature rapidly builds up - I've already spent fifteen hours this week alone in a catch up blitz.

this blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file 

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"   Oscar Wilde 

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 20,700 abstracts.

In a recent blog post - "Self-practice, Self-reflection (SP/SR) & treatment for social anxiety: avoidance & safety behaviours (4th post)" - I discussed identification of avoidance & safety behaviours using questionnaires like David Clark's "Behaviours questionnaire" and Ronald Rapee's "Subtle avoidance frequency examination (SAFE)".

The Norwegian Cardiac Exercise Research Group was established early in 2008 with funding from the Norwegian Research Council and other grant organizations. The work of their team of 36 research scientists "focuses on identifying the key cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of physical exercise on the heart, arteries and skeletal muscle in the context of disease prevention and management through experimental, clinical and epidemiological studies. Identifying the cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with aerobic fitness is important, because it may help us develop new and better methods to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease.  The relationship between physical activity and health can be studied by either top-down or bottom-up approaches.

I have been asked to write a column on "Keeping up with the literature" for CBT Today "the official magazine of the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies".  I sent in a first copy a couple of months ago, but unfortunately the editors couldn't get the space to squeeze it in.  Today's post is an extension of that first copy, with several additions to the original publications that were initially recommended.  As before, I thought it might be helpful to put an online version onto this website so that I can include relevant hyperlinks to the various research articles that I mention.

I have written three posts recently on Self-practice/Self-reflection (SP/SR) and cutting edge CBT for social anxiety disorder - the most recent went onto the website yesterday.  There is also a further associated post - "Assessment & monitoring questionnaires for CBT treatment of social anxiety disorder" - which gives ten or so relevant downloadable questionnaires & handouts.  I mentioned that David Clark suggested (at the workshop I attended with him) that there are "five treatment innovations" in his approach to social phobia treatment - 1.) self-focused attention & safety behaviours experiments; 2.) video (and still) feedback; 3.) atten

I have recently written a series of three blog posts on David Clark's very impressive cognitive therapy treatment for social anxiety disorder.  One of the posts is very practical, giving ten or so relevant downloadable questionnaires & handouts - see "Assessment & monitoring questionnaires for CBT treatment of social anxiety disorder".  The other two are the first pair of posts in a more extended sequence - "Self-practice, Self-reflection (SP/SR) & David Clark's treatment for social anxiety: introduction (1st post)" and