Full Description
Apply CBT techniques to emotional challenges of long-term illness
CBT Frontline Action for Long-Term Conditions and Palliative Care is a guide to the sensitive application of CBT to promote psychological well-being in people with life-changing physical illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart problems and multiple sclerosis.
Living with a long-term condition or life-limiting illness brings challenges that extend far beyond the physical. For many people, emotional distress, unhelpful habits, anxieties, dilemmas, and setbacks become part of the landscape of daily life. Those providing care—whether in hospitals, community teams, social care, or specialist palliative services—encounter these difficulties every day, often without the psychological tools they wish they had.
This book is written for those practitioners.
CBT Frontline Action offers a practical, respectful way of bringing psychological understanding into routine clinical work. It is designed for busy professionals who want to respond more confidently and sensitively when distress gets in the way of treatment, recovery, or quality of life. Its aim is not to turn readers into therapists, but to help them use proven cognitive behavioural ideas in straightforward, timely ways that fit naturally into their established roles.
Drawing on many years of practice in physical health, mental health, and palliative care, the authors describe a clear pathway for using CBT Frontline Action (CFA): how to spot when it may help, how to understand what is happening for the person in front of the practitioner, and how to choose small, focused interventions that can make a meaningful difference.
The book is arranged in three parts:
Practitioner Briefings, which outline the key actions and decisions in CFA, illustrated with practitioner characters whose experiences mirror those of real-world staff.
The Manual, which explains the evidence, skills, and principles underpinning CBT in long-term conditions, accompanied by case examples that reflect the complexity and humanity of the work.
The Toolkit, a practical resource containing problem guides, techniques, information sheets, and record forms to support day-to-day practice.
Throughout the book, collaboration, empathy, and the importance of working with, not on, the people being supported are emphasised. The authors also highlight the value of self-awareness and self-care for practitioners, recognising that emotionally demanding work requires attention to personal wellbeing.
Whether working in health care, social care, or community settings, readers are encouraged to feel more equipped to respond to distress, more attuned to the psychological dimensions of illness, and more confident in the small actions that often make the biggest difference.
Written by practitioners for practitioners, this book aims to support the shared endeavour of helping people live as fully as possible in the face of long-term and life-changing conditions.
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
About the Authors x
Acknowledgements and Foreword xi
Introduction 1
Part 1: The Practitioner Briefings for CBT Frontline Action
A. CFA in Your Work 9
B. Is Using CFA in My Work for Me? 20
C. Preparing to Use CFA 25
D. Deciding to Use CFA 30
E. Action 1 -Identifying the Problem 33
F. Action 2 -Understanding the Problem Better 38
G. Action 3 -Agreeing a Goal and Action Plan 45
H. Action 4 -Session Structure 50
I. Action 5 -Applying CFA to the Plan 55
J. Maintaining Skills and Personal Wellbeing 60
Part 2: The CFA Manual
Chapter 1: CBT and Long-Term Conditions 69
Chapter 2: Does Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Work? -Researching the Evidence 82
Chapter 3: Core Skills in CBT Frontline Action 97
Chapter 4: Deciding to Use CBT Frontline Action 128
Chapter 5: Goals, Purpose, Values and Hope 182
Chapter 6: Bringing About Change and Sustaining It 202
Chapter 7: Supervision and Self-care 241
Part 3: The Toolkit: CBT Methods in Practice
Section 1: Guide to Problem Identification and Decision-Making 257
Section 2: Techniques 317
Section 3: Information Sheets 349
Section 4: Record Forms 403
Index 000
