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This paper provides a brief introduction to the CCC therapy approach while demonstrating how it is embedded in a transpersonal world view. Its origins, starting from inner experience and meeting specific service challenges within various NHS setting are discussed. The theoretical basis for CCC in Interacting Cognitive Subsystems is introduced, providing a non-medical explanation for psychotic and other so-called ‘symptoms’. The three components of the approach are explained. ‘Comprehend’ covers an emotion-focused, trauma-informed, co-produced formulation. ‘Cope’ is about finding other ways to manage, and ‘Connect’ is reflected in the central place given to relationship, both with the self, within the self, with other people, and reaching out to wider, spiritual connectedness beyond the human world. The paper concludes by summarising publications, research and deployment of the approach.

Comprehend, Cope, and Connect (CCC) is a third-wave cognitive behavioural approach developed for acute mental health services. The aim of this study was to assess feasibility and acceptability of a newly developed, manualized single-session CCC intervention delivered face-to-face with service users in acute and crisis psychology services in South London. The study adopted a within-subjects pre-post-test design. Participants (N = 23) were recruited from five acute psychiatric wards and a crisis resolution home treatment team. Service users had a range of diagnoses of complex and severe mental health conditions, in particular mood, personality, and psychotic disorders. Feasibility data were gathered for number of times the CCC formulation was accepted, duration of CCC intervention, clinician adherence to manualised protocol, and frequency of goal-based activity completion. Acceptability data on pre- and post-CCC mood and post-CCC helpfulness were self-reported by participants. Findings indicated a significant increase in positive mood (large effect) and moderate-high helpfulness rating postintervention. Most participants reported goal-based activity completion. There was high fidelity to the protocol, high percentage of acceptance of the formulation and formulation components completed, and frequent single-session completion. Single-session CCC appears feasible and acceptable in acute and crisis psychology services and yields formulation-driven goal-based activities intended to stabilize mental health crisis. High fidelity to formulation protocol suggests broader applications for single-session CCC, for example, to support clinical staff to manage crisis situations in their work environment or to train nonpsychologist clinicians to deliver the intervention for service users. A randomized controlled trial of single-session CCC would increase validity and generalisability of findings.

Traumatic experiences are known to have a significant impact upon one’s physical and mental health. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is understood to be a common mental health consequence of trauma. However, Complex Trauma and consequences of adverse childhood experiences appear more prevalent and a serious public health concern that hinders the individual’s daily existence, thus emphasising the need to implement a culturally free treatment intervention. In this chapter, we begin by introducing traumatic experiences in several contexts and explore the treatment for trauma. It will focus on a research study that employs Comprehend, Cope and Connect (CCC), a third wave CBT approach, to deliver a culturally free form of therapy that has been adapted for individuals from diverse populations. The CCC approach’s relevance to cultural adaptation is explained and discussed through the use of two case examples from the main study. The Culture Free study found that CCC was both feasible and acceptable in diverse populations, echoing existing research on cultural adaptations which found use of mindfulness to be accepted and appreciated as an effective intervention that can elicit concrete positive change across a broad range of mental health presentations, including trauma and trans-diagnostically. Further investigations utilising a robust methodology and powered sample are warranted in particular with diverse populations presenting with complex trauma.

The psychology of spirituality raises fascinating questions. The first one is: why is spirituality still located within the intellectual frame of the twenty-first century to the extent that merits ...

This article is dedicated to the many clinical psychologists, service users and carers who have made the Faculty what it is today. Some names are mentioned, but as this is a whistle stop tour sincere apologies for those of you not specifically named, but we hope you and others recognise your influence on the Faculty’s work.

The emotion focused formulation approach has been developed and evaluated in acute mental health services since 2004, but is being applied more broadly. Its application both as an individual and a team formulation is explored, along with its cognitive science basis.

SYNOPSISThe Conference on Spirit Possession and Mental Health, organized by the Ethnic Health Initiative in London, September 2013, introduced the dilemma of the practitioner of Western medicine, faced with a predominantly ethnic-minority client group with a culturally and religiously sanctioned attribution of certain mental health difficulties to possession by spirits (or Jinns in Islamic terminology). Working with traditional healers is a possible solution, but is complicated by the heterogeneity and lack of regulation of this body. By questioning the assumptions behind the Western scientific world-view regarding the impermeability of the human mind, this paper presents a model of the human being that can accommodate the reality of extraneous invasion. Based on the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems model of cognitive architecture (Teasdale and Barnard, 1995), it is possible to argue that we have the capacity in certain susceptible states of mind to step away from our individuality into such a place of vu...