About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about real world implications of currently available psychotherapies, focusing in particular on: (i) the end of the 20th century being a period at which point many countries restricted the offerings of their health services to being only evidence-based therapies, such as CBT; (ii) the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which produces the NICE guidelines for appropriate therapies for each mental health diagnosis; (iii) the conformity of psychodynamic and humanistic practitioners to scientific study, in order that the effectiveness of their therapies could be presented; (iv) the inclusion of humanistic therapies in the most recent NICE guidelines; (v) the loss that could be perceived from the side-lining of certain therapies during the period wherein CBT was the primarily recommended therapy.

About the lecturer

Dr Helen Bolderston is a senior lecturer in psychology in the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University. Dr Bolderston’s research interests lie in acceptance-based psychotherapies, processes implicated in the development and maintenance of mental health problems, and psychological wellbeing and burnout in health and social care students and professionals. Some of Dr Bolderston’s recent publications include 'Cognitive fusion as a candidate psychological vulnerability factor for psychosis: An experimental study of acute 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) intoxication' (2021) and 'Resilience and surgeons: train the individual or change the system?' (2020).