Imperfect Cognitions

Chloe Bamboulis, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, works on the relationship between classic philosophical views and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). In this video , she talks for three minutes about self-knowledge in Plato and in CBT. In today's post she summarises a commentary co-authored with Lisa Bortolotti on the utility of CBT, forthcoming in Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology. Chloe Bamboulis A common idea about CBT is that it does not contribute to the person's understanding of reality ( validity ) but encourages ways of thinking that boost the person's wellbeing ( utility ). In our brief commentary, we argue that CBT can also contribute to some of the person's epistemic goals. Suppose James comes to believe that he will not be offered his dream job, the one he is going to be interviewed for. James arrives at this self-prediction by accepting a negative automatic thought about himself as someone who does not perform well at job interviews. A...

Ellen White at the 2014 Mind Media Awards Our new feature is a series of posts by experts by experience to be published on the last Monday of each month. Last month we had Roberta Payne who wrote about schizophrenia and "outsider art" . This month, we are delighted to host Ellen White who was recently awarded the 2014 Mind Media Award as Top Blogger. In her influential and inspirational blog , Ellen writes about the positive and negative effects of OCD and depression on her life, and challenges public attitudes towards mental illness. You can also follow her on Twitter . Suffering from a mental health condition can be for the most part extremely distressing. An everyday battle with our minds. Not knowing what to believe, what not to believe, feeling like your own mind is working against you. However, living with a mental health condition can often go hand in hand with educating ourselves about the conditions we are suffering with and mental health in general. To rec...

WASP 50th Jubilee Congress On November 13th-15th 2014, the World Association of Social Psychiatry held its 50th Jubilee Congress . The event was a joint conference with the Royal College of Psychiatrists , organised in Park Plaza Hotel in Central London. The Congress assembled a programme of wide scientific interest, marking the achievements of social psychiatry as a keystone to excellence in mental health care. It welcomed participants from 50 different countries and consisted of 60 lectures, seminars, workshops and talks as well as nearly 200 poster presentations. This report presents only a small selection of what was an enormously rich and interesting programme. In his opening speech, the WASP President Dinesh Bhugra addressed current challenges to psychiatric practices in the 21st century. Bhugra put a particular emphasis on mental health issues arising as a result of globalization and use of modern technology, including cyber-bullying, internet-based religious radi...