All counsellors & psychotherapists in the UK need to have regular supervision if they want to maintain their professional accreditation.  A central reason for this is to support therapists in being as helpful as possible for their clients.  Unfortunately current approaches to supervision don't seem to do this particularly well.  In a recent issue of the Cognitive Behavior Therapy journal, Alfonsson et al in their article "The effects of clinical supervision on supervisees and patients in cognitive behavioral therapy: a systematic review" clearly state "No study could show benefits from supervision for patients."  And this depressing conclusion simply affirms what previous research has already highlighted for psychotherapy more generally ...

I wrote yesterday about the email that was sent out last autumn asking several fellow psychotherapists up here in Edinburgh whether they would be interested in forming a Therapists' Support Group.

Seven of us got together yesterday afternoon to talk about possibly setting up some kind of therapists' support group.  We're all therapists ourselves, and some of us are close to or on the mature side of 60.  All male therapists, so we're kind of "the Grizzlies".  Why do it?  It's mostly been me who has got this inital meeting to happen ... with some help from a friend.  Why the effort?  The email we sent out at the end of November was headed "Invitation to a therapists' support group" and it read:  

Greetings.

Recently two of us ... who have been involved with counselling/psychotherapy for many years, have been talking about some good things that might emerge from meeting up with other experienced therapists.  We've batted around a whole series of ideas and one that has emerged looks loosely like this:

NICE - the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - recently published guidance on "Depression in adults (update)" and on "Depression with a chronic physical health problem".  The "Depression in adults (update)"  replaces guidance originally published in 2004 and amended in 2007.  The 28 page Quick reference guide provides a helpful overview.  Interestingly NICE here use the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for depression rather than the ICD-10 criteria (used in their earlier publications).  A four step approach is charted - each step is described both by who the intervention is for (e.g.

Just as there were research papers on depression that stood out and got me thinking last month, so too there were particular papers on psychotherapy that I found more interesting than others.