Isabel Clarke — Clinical Home Page
Audio Recordings of Breathing and Mindfulness Instructions
Arousal management and mindfulness are central to my approach. There are plenty of resources around for both of these.
The examples that follow are the ones that I use.
Relaxation Breathing
Basic Grounding Mindfulness
Grounding Mindfulness with Thoughts
The Woodhaven therapeutic approach relies on identifying areas to work on change through formulation, followed by a menu of psychological groups to assist people to make the necessary changes. See recent book chapter on coping mechanisms, Clarke, I. (2009) “Coping with Crisis and Overwhelming Affect: Employing Coping Mechanisms in the Acute Inpatient Context”. In A.M. Columbus Ed. Coping Mechanisms: Strategies and Outcomes. Advances in Psychology Research Vol.63. Huntington NY State:Nova Science Publishers Inc.
We have developed manuals for these groups so that other staff can be trained in their delivery. (NB 4 of the manuals have been temporarily unlinked for editing - they will soon be restored).
Arousal Management is key to the approach.
Emotion Management is also central.
The Emotional Coping Skills Group manual is based on Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy manul (Linehan, M. (1993) Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder, New York: The Guildford Press, and so not reproduced here. The programme is run by a dedicated group of staff have been trained in DBT approaches by the Trust, meet regularly in a consult group for supervision, and deliver the transdiagnostic Emotional Coping Skills (ECS) programme, that has recently been relaunched to include service user input from CAST. DBT trained staff also provide ongoing skills coaching, chain analysis etc. on the ward.
‘The What is Real and What is not’ group – a psychosis programme, including mindfulness, with particular emphasis on normalising anomalous experience and so counteracting the stigma of diagnosis which can impede engagement and progress for people with these difficulties.
ResearchMary Owen's Research
Mary Owen recently conducted an RCT using this programme in Liverpool and published the results in the following paper: Owen, M., Sellwood, W., Kan, S., Murray, J., & Sarsam, M.(2015). Group CBT for psychosis: A longitudinal, controlled trial with inpatients. Behaviour Research and Therapy 65, 76 -85
In the course of this she produced an improved manual which she has given me permission to publish on this website as follows:
Mary Owen and collaborator's version of the What is Real Manual
The Compassionate Friend’ group.
‘The Compassionate Friend’ group. A compassionate-mind based self esteem programme that utilizes the natural support systems between service users on a ward to counteract the self criticism that can undermine peoples’ recovery.