If you suffer from a condition that can be treated with CBT, you might be able to help yourself in some ways. Helping yourself is appropriate in various circumstances — for example:
In general, you can help yourself by using books and other study materials, by joining self-help groups, or by using self-help web sites on the Internet. You can also use a combination of these things.
Self help has some advantages. For example, it is usually cheap compared to private therapy. For many forms of self help it does not matter where you live, so self help might be available to you even if CBT is not available in your area.
Self help can give you:
Self help also has some disadvantages. When self help goes wrong, it can make you:
It is important that you are aware of these when you use self-help techniques.
If you use self help for information, you need to be sure that the information is unbiased, that you understand it properly, and that it applies to you.
Some information that you can find in books, leaflets and web sites is written to promote a particular point of view. It might be out of date, or it might not be the best available information about your condition. Evaluating these things can be tricky.
One way to protect yourself is to look at several different sources of information. When all the sources of information agree on something, then you can be pretty sure it is correct. When one source of information disagrees with another on something, then you cannot really be sure about it.
Sources of information are usually written for anyone to read. So a lot of the information that you find might not apply to you at all. Do not imagine that something applies to you just because you read about it. Your particular case might be different.
Some sources of information use confusing language or technical jargon. If you search the Internet from the UK you will find a lot of information written in the US, where some of the terms used are different. For example, the therapy known as CBT in the UK is known as CT in the US.
All these things can make it difficult to find clear, reliable information about your particular condition. If you find yourself being overloaded with confusing information, try to limit yourself to a few basic things that you really need to know. Ignore any information that does not directly help your recovery.
If you feel you are alone with your condition, then contact with other sufferers can be helpful. It can make you feel more positive.
But contact with other sufferers is not always a good thing. You might contact sufferers who seem to have the same symptoms, but the causes of their symptoms might be very different. You cannot assume that other sufferers are exactly like you.
For example, you might get in touch with sufferers who have a long-term condition, while your condition is short-term and curable. This might make you depressed. It might even make you give up hope and avoid treatment.
One way to protect yourself is to make a note of your mood before and after you have contact with other sufferers. You can ask people close to you to help you with this. If you become more negative about your condition in the days after you have contact with other sufferers, or experience depression, then it might be better for you to avoid that contact in future. Instead, you could try a different self-help group, or try a completely different way to help yourself.
You can use self help for practical advice on various things related to your condition. These can range from small things that improve your life a little, to a complete do-it-yourself course of CBT treatment.
As with other forms of self help, it is best to make sure that the practical advice really applies to you.
Before you try something that might improve your life, you can make notes about how you feel. After you try the advice, you can compare how you feel with the notes you made. If you feel worse, stop doing it! It might have helped someone else in the past, but that does not automatically mean it will help you. Treat each piece of advice as an experiment. Try it for a limited time, then make up your own mind about whether to continue.
If you decide to work through a do-it-yourself course of treatment, remember that the do-it-yourself course is not like real CBT. For details of how real CBT works, see The four stages of CBT. A do-it-yourself course does not provide you with a therapist who can understand you as a person (stage 1), and it might not give you any understanding of your particular condition (stage 2). It might make you practice behaviours that are pointless in your circumstances (stage 3). And you might not learn anything relevant to your life (stage 4).
Even so, do-it-yourself treatment can sometimes be helpful. If you find that do-it-yourself treatment helps you a little, then you can expect real CBT to help you much more. If you find that do-it-yourself treatment does not help you at all, remember that real CBT treatment is very different. It might be very effective for you.
Self-help organizations often provide telephone helplines that you can call in a crisis. These can provide you with someone to talk to, who understands what you are going through, and who might be able to give you advice about how to cope. They can be very helpful.
Many crisis helplines are run by volunteers who might not have had much training. So if you telephone a helpline and the person you speak to is not helpful, remember that you might get a different person if you try again at another time.
If you find that you are calling a crisis helpline often, it might mean that your condition is getting worse. Make sure that you talk about this to your GP or to the specialist who is treating you. You could try keeping a diary where you note each call that you make and your reasons for making it. This might help you to identify a pattern and deal with the recurring crises more effectively. Then you can keep the helpline in reserve for more serious crises.
A self-help group or voluntary organization can give you opportunities to help others. Your experience as a sufferer can make you a valuable member of the group or organization.
If you volunteer to help others before you have fully recovered, try to ensure that this work does not hold back your own recovery. The experience of being valued as a sufferer might make you start to feel that recovery is not so attractive. In reality you might be able to help others better if you first recover fully from your own condition.
Here are some good sources of self help.
For information on a range of subjects relating to mental health:
The Royal College of Psychiatrists
The following are voluntary organizations in the UK:
For anxiety, panic, obsessions, and related conditions: No Panic
For chronic fatigue and related conditions: Action for M.E.
This book is a general-purpose do-it-yourself approach to CBT. It was written by two of the world's leading experts:
These web sites provide free do-it-yourself approaches to CBT using the Internet:
Living Life to The Full
(Run by a leading psychiatrist based in Glasgow.)MoodGym
(Run by the the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University in Canberra.)
If you are looking for more sources of self help in the UK, try the list maintained by MIND on their Links page.
© 2005, 2008 Louise Ritson. All rights reserved.