Three Minute Therapy PDF Download

Author: Michael Edelstein, Ph.D.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359071937
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Three Minute Therapy can help to change your life for the better. You will find yourself looking at life in a different way. Your emotional troubles will seem less mysterious and less powerful. If you take the trouble to learn the techniques explained in Three Minute Therapy, think about them, and apply them to your problems, you will be able to tackle difficulties that may have seemed impossible. Some of your worst fears and anxieties can diminish or dissolve away, and you will become more effective at pursuing your chosen life goals. The techniques used in Three Minute Therapy show you, clearly and simply, how you needlessly upset yourself, and it gives you many thinking, feeling, and action methods of reducing your disturbances while still retaining your main goals, values, and preferences. Three Minute Therapy can add years of healthier and happier living to your life. This book will show you how to change your thinking and change your life!

Author: Ronald Potter-Efron
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
ISBN: 1608820300
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
If You Have 30 Minutes, You Can Take Charge of Anger Anger fills us with adrenaline, but can also cloud our thinking--a combination that tends to get us into trouble. In 30-Minute Therapy for Anger, you'll learn proven-effective skills developed by therapists for helping people process and control their anger instead of lashing out at others. These conflict-defusing techniques will help you "cool down" anger so that you can respond calmly and effectively, even in life's most aggravating situations. Read just one or all three parts of this book: Get the basics Learn what you need to know to quickly get anger under control in the first sections of each chapter. Gain a deeper understanding Take it further and read the second sections of each chapter for skills that will help you make lasting changes. Then, go online to practice your skills Log on to find more exercises available online exclusively for 30-Minute Therapy for Anger readers.

Author: Matthew McKay
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
ISBN: 1608826155
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
If your anxiety is getting in the way of living a normal life, you need help now, rather than later. What if you could dramatically improve your anxiety symptoms in just thirty minutes? In 30-Minute Therapy for Anxiety, you’ll discover proven anxiety-busting strategies and put them into practice right away so that you can feel calm and in control, even in the most stressful situations. This set of skills will help you manage worries, panic attacks, fears, and phobias whenever they show up so you can enjoy a fuller and freer life. Read just one or all three parts of this book and: • Get the basics. Learn what you need to know to quickly get anxiety under control in the first section of each chapter. • Gain a deeper understanding. Take it further and read the second section of each chapter for skills that will help you make lasting changes. • Then, go online to practice your skills. Log on to find more exercises available online exclusively for 30-Minute Therapy for Anxiety readers. This quick and easy-to-read to anxiety treatment offers cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness and acceptance strategies to help you get back to living your life—without anxiety taking over.

Author: Michael R. Edelstein
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812698460
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
More people are in psychotherapy than ever before. Yet most of them have no idea of the vast differences between the hundreds of various schools of therapy. Therapy Breakthrough is the first book to clearly explain the theories and practices of the two big camps: Psychodynamic or PD therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral or CB therapy. PD therapists believe that emotional problems are caused by hidden forces in our unconscious minds, forces that cannot be observed directly and that resist being uncovered. CB therapists, by contrast, maintain that the roots of people’s emotional and behavioral disturbances can be identified by direct questions, and these problems can then be tackled by straightforward techniques. Therapy Breakthrough is written from the standpoint of CB therapy. Using psychological research, philosophy, and common sense, it argues that PD therapy is founded on mistaken theories of the mind, and explains how to apply CB methods directly to your own problems.

Author: Zindel Segal
Publisher: Guilford Publications
ISBN: 1462537030
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
This acclaimed work, now in a new edition, has introduced tens of thousands of clinicians to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for depression, an 8-week program with proven effectiveness. Step by step, the authors explain the "whys" and "how-tos" of conducting mindfulness practices and cognitive interventions that have been shown to bolster recovery from depression and prevent relapse. Clinicians are also guided to practice mindfulness themselves, an essential prerequisite to teaching others. Forty-five reproducible handouts are included. Purchasers get access to a companion website featuring downloadable audio recordings of the guided mindfulness practices (meditations and mindful movement), plus all of the reproducibles, ready to download and print in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. A separate website for use by clients features the audio recordings only. New to This Edition *Incorporates a decade's worth of developments in MBCT clinical practice and training. *Chapters on additional treatment components: the pre-course interview and optional full-day retreat. *Chapters on self-compassion, the inquiry process, and the three-minute breathing space. *Findings from multiple studies of MBCT's effectiveness and underlying mechanisms. Includes studies of adaptations for treating psychological and physical health problems other than depression. *Audio files of the guided mindfulness practices, narrated by the authors, on two separate Web pages--one for professionals, together with the reproducibles, and one just for clients. See also the authors' related titles for clients: The Mindful Way through Depression demonstrates these proven strategies in a self-help format, with in-depth stories and examples. The Mindful Way Workbook gives clients additional, explicit support for building their mindfulness practice, following the sequence of the MBCT program. Plus, for professionals: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy with People at Risk of Suicide extends and refines MBCT for clients with suicidal depression.

Author: Frank Wills
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446289796
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
′A delightful volume, with unique style and content. This new edition amply lives up to the authors′ aim of demonstrating a mode of CBT practice that incorporates many exciting developments whilst retaining the reassuring strength of the original parsimonious model.′ Ann Hackmann, Oxford Mindfulness Centre, University of Oxford ′One of the very best introductions to CBT, now enhanced with excellent coverage of new developments.′ Professor Neil Frude, Consultant Clinical Psychologist ′My first choice recommendation for trainee therapists. This outstanding and easy-to-read introduction just got better.′ Peter Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health, University of Glamorgan In their established guide to contemporary CBT theory and practice, the authors show how therapeutic change takes place across a network of cognitive, emotional and behavioural functioning. They explain the central concepts of CBT and illustrate - with numerous case examples - how these can effectively be put into practice at each stage of the therapeutic process. They also explain how the essence of cutting edge ′third wave′ can be integrated into everyday clinical practice. With two new chapters on mindfulness and increasing access to CBT, a wider coverage of client issues, extra case studies and learning resources, and a discussion of recent developments, this book continues to be the ideal companion for those working - or training to work - in the psychological therapies and mental health. Frank Wills is an independent Cognitive Psychotherapist in Bristol and tutor at the University of Wales Newport. Diana Sanders, Counselling Psychologist and BABCP Accredited Cognitive Psychotherapist in Independent Practice, Oxford.

Author: Thomas R. Lynch
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
ISBN: 1626259305
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Based on over twenty years of research, radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) is a breakthrough, transdiagnostic approach for helping people suffering from extremely difficult-to-treat emotional overcontrol (OC) disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and treatment-resistant depression. Written by the founder of RO DBT, Thomas Lynch, this comprehensive volume outlines the core theories of RO DBT, and provides a framework for implementing RO DBT in individual therapy. While traditional dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) has shown tremendous success in treating people with emotion dysregulation, there have been few resources available for treating those with overcontrol disorders. OC has been linked to social isolation, aloof and distant relationships, cognitive rigidity, risk aversion, a strong need for structure, inhibited emotional expression, and hyper-perfectionism. And yet—perhaps due to the high value our society places on the capacity to delay gratification and inhibit public displays of destructive emotions and impulses—problems linked with OC have received little attention or been misunderstood. Indeed, people with OC are often considered highly successful by others, even as they suffer silently and alone. RO DBT is based on the premise that psychological well-being involves the confluence of three factors: receptivity, flexibility, and social-connectedness. RO DBT addresses each of these important factors, and is the first treatment in the world to prioritize social-signaling as the primary mechanism of change based on a transdiagnostic, neuroregulatory model linking the communicative function of human emotions to the establishment of social connectedness and well-being. As such, RO DBT is an invaluable resource for treating an array of disorders that center around overcontrol and a lack of social connectedness—such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, postpartum depression, treatment-resistant anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorders, as well as personality disorders such as avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid personality disorder. Written for mental health professionals, professors, or simply those interested in behavioral health, this seminal book—along with its companion, The Skills Training Manual for Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (available separately)—provides everything you need to understand and implement this exciting new treatment in individual therapy—including theory, history, research, ongoing studies, clinical examples, and future directions.

Author: Harper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578656069
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The Explosive Conclusion to the Dr. Harper Therapy series I'm a therapist, and I've worked with the wildest internet celebrities... A vigilante who treated humans as factory farm animals. A germaphobe who warned of the next major plague. My own best friend. A rapist who got cancelled online - and in real life. A psychic medium with a disturbing prediction. And the last patient I ever worked with: The one who asked me to take them off life support. It all started with a big social media festival on a little island. We were promised endless days of sunshine, beach bonfires under the stars, and a chance to party with the world's most renowned influencers. Instead, we were lucky if we made it out in one piece.

Author: Faith G. Harper, PhD, LPC-S, ACS, ACN
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
ISBN: 1621060403
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Our brains are doing our best to help us out, but they can be real assholes sometimes. Sometimes it seems like your own brain is out to get you—melting down in the middle of the grocery store, picking fights with your date, getting you addicted to something, or shutting down completely at the worst possible moments. You already told your brain firmly that it isn't good to do these things. But your brain has a mind of its own. That's where this book comes in. With humor, patience, and lots of swearing, Dr. Faith shows you the science behind what's going on in your skull and talks you through the process of retraining your brain to respond appropriately to the non-emergencies of everyday life. If you're working to deal with old traumas, or if you just want to have a more measured and chill response to situations you face all the time, this book can help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and get your life and brain back.Here's an excerpt from the book:Knowing what’s going on up in your brain is HUGE. So much of how we interact with the world around us is a completely normal response when we take into account our past experiences and how our brains work. • Freaking the fuck out • Avoiding important shit we need to take care of • Feeling pissed off all the time • Being a dick to people we care about • Putting shit in our bodies that we know isn’t good for us • Doing shit we know is dumb or pointlessNone of these things are fucking helpful. But they all make sense.Your brain has adapted to the circumstances in your life and started doing things to protect you, bless it. It’s not TRYING to fuck you over (even though it totally is, at times).As we navigate the world, nasty shit happens. The brain stores info about the nasty shit to try to avoid it in the future. Sometimes these responses are helpful. Sometimes the responses become a bigger problem than the actual problem was. It’s called a trauma reaction.And even if you aren’t dealing with a specific trauma? Adaptive coping strategies, bad habits, and funky behaviors all wire in similar ways. And research is showing that these issues are actually some of the easier ones to treat in therapy … if we address what’s really going on, rather than just the symptoms.

Author: Tim LeBon
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 144624038X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country′s leading philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has ′published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philosophy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emotional challenges. `Wise Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients′ - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon′s Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work′ - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity′ - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy′ - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist′s quiver′ - Irvin Yalom, author of Love′s Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it.... There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client′s values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life.... Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed.... I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy′ - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers′ Magazine `Tim LeBon has... authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor′s bookshelf.... Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book.... His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon′s book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor′s Philosophical Toolbox"′ - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling.... Tim LeBon′s book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy′ - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a ′counsellor′s toolbox′ of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you′re left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that′s how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He′d flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there′d been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we′d made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there′s an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK′s Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don′t have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It′s for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever′s troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient′s thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a ′matching half′ of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what′s more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn′t matter if the two people who loved each other couldn′t get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love′s purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it′s irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I′ve been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn′t work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can′t change what has happened," he says. "You can′t change that he′s left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let′s work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you′ll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn′t like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn′t want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I′d love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I′m now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven′t got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day ′I have lived′" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul′s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he′d made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. ′It′s a much better lifestyle,′ he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: ′How do I make sense of myself?′ ′What is important to me?′ ′Where am I going?′ These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as ′therapy for the sane.′ Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. ′The dilemmas people face aren′t always primarily psychological,′ says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. ′If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn′t make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.′ Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: ′We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don′t trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.′ Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: ′Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.′ While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they′re a screw-up because they′ve screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they′re making an error called ′fallacy of composition′ - that is, what′s true of the part isn′t necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren′t pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. ′Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,′ says Howard. ′But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.′ Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. ′Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,′ he says. ′With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.′ LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don′t go far enough in helping their clients. ′For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,′ says LeBon. ′A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don′t want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.′ LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. ′There′s very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it′s time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,′ he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn′t ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. ′The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it′s not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.′ Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004