Our new service for Rowan Alba

We are really pleased to be working with  Rowen Alba, a charity working with vulnerable people,  to provide a cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) service for women who have experienced domestic abuse and presently moving into their own home. This service is designed specifically to meet the needs of Rowen Alba clients, and reflects the specific and distinct needs of this community. The service is located in the Edinburgh Psychology Centre (www.edinburghtherapy.co.uk), and led by Tasim Martin, Chartered Psychologist.

Getting your 'foot in the door'

We receive many emails and letters from students wishing to work with us to build experience, prior to applying to train in psychology. We all remember what it is like to be starting out, and do try to help when we can, but we were really delighted to read a new book 'Psychology - my foot in the door'  by Sarah Parry. This explains in detail the different avenues open to anyone interested in psychology as a career, focusing on the different types of 'psychologist ' (there are quite a few...) and spells out, in easy terms, the steps you may need to take to qualify and get a job in the field.  The book features some useful case studies, including one by our very own Counselling and Health Psychologist, Dr Ewan Gillon, and is an easy way of answering many of those questions that come to mind when starting out in psychology. It is available at good booksellers, and in keeping with the times, has its own facebook group, on http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/home.php?sk=group_123630684362304&ap=1 

World Stress Day, 3rd November 2010

Stress is a term we use a lot nowadays, and world stress day (today!) is designed to highlight how many of us suffer from it.  There seem many reasons for this, including  the many pressures we experience  at work and at home (pressure is the term used to define events/requirements that are external to us - these can cause stress if we find them difficult or anxiety provoking in some way or other).  Managing stress, in this sense, is something we can do in addressing how we respond to the pressures we have to deal with.  This can be as simple as introducing coping strategies, such as exercise and relaxation, using techniques to worry less (such as identifying cognitive distortions such as when you are thinking in very unrealistic or catastrophic ways about what might happen) or indeed just planning your time more effectively.  Sometimes though the pressures themselves need to be addressed. It might be that you really do just have too much work to do, or are committed to things in your life that just are unmanageable.  Distinguishing between pressures and stress is important, because it allows you to work out what changes you need to make to feel better, and to combat stress for good.

We published our latest newsletter today!

We published our latest newsletter today. It's always such hard work deciding what each issue should contain. There is usually so much that we'd like to say!

We have two great articles: one looks at extreme sport and explores whether it is a hidden form of self-harm; the other is about anger and ways to manage those powerful feelings we all have.

We are also excited to promote a new family therapy service at our centres. We are working with the Institute of Systemic and Family Therapy (InSyT (Scotland)) to run this valuable service.

What a busy time we are having!