Clients' Experience of Structured Self-therapy After CBT Discharge
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Phenomenological Exploration of Clients’ Lived Experience of the Journey of Using Structured Self-Therapy Sessions Following Discharge From Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
IRAS ID
214724
Contact name
Mick McKeown
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Central Lancashire
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 30 days
Research summary
Despite the common assumption that self-therapy has a pivotal role in preventing relapse of common mental health problems and the presence of research studies confirming that booster sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) have a significant impact in reducing relapse rates, there are almost no published studies exploring the use of self-therapy post discharge from CBT. There is a tool that is described in the CBT literature (Beck, 1995) that can be used by clients to provide a structure for self-therapy sessions to enable continued application of CBT following discharge. There has also been no published studies exploring the use of this tool.
This research will explore clients’ experience of structured self-therapy sessions following discharge from a course of CBT. Clients who are over the age of 16 and are approaching the end of a course of CBT provided by the Mindsmatter psychological therapies service (within Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust) to treat a common mental health problem, will be invited to participate in the study by CBT therapists working within the Mindsmatter service. Participants will be asked to use the tool suggested by Beck (1995) to guide the structure of their own self-therapy sessions, which will take place weekly for one hour, following discharge from CBT.
This research will be completed through semi-structured interviews with ten clients at the discharge point of CBT when preparing to engage in structured self-therapy sessions, and at 3 months post discharge.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/SC/0386
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jul 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion