Our ‘Understanding…’ series is a collection of psychoeducation guides for common mental health conditions. Understanding Depression is designed to help clients suffering from depression understand more about their condition.

It is thought that between 1 and 10 people out of every 100 will experience health anxiety every year. This friendly and explanatory guide gives clear descriptions of symptoms and treatment options, as well as exploring maintenance factors.

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a first-line treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder and involves intentionally facing feared stimuli without engaging in compulsions. ERP can be daunting for therapists and clients alike, especially when working online. Fortunately, excellent guidance and hard-won lessons are outlined in this open-access paper, published in Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. The authors describe the common challenges that arise in online ERP, such as missing subtle compulsions and difficulties modeling exposures, as well the benefits of teletherapy, including opportunities for spontaneous exposure and involving others in treatment.

The classical view in CBT is that cognitive change leads to emotional change, but the relationship between thoughts and feelings isn’t always so clear cut. In this recent study, Jacqueline Persons and colleagues found that changes in cognitive distortions and affective symptoms of depression preceded and predicted the other. In other words, thoughts and feelings appear to have a reciprocal relationship. These findings suggest that cognition-focused interventions such as cognitive restructuring and emotion-focused, exposure-based interventions both have a place in CBT for depression. It might also mean that there are differences in how individuals respond to cognitive and emotion-focused interventions.