Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave.

CBT is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a negative cycle.

CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts.

You’re shown how to change these negative patterns to improve the way you feel.

Unlike some other talking treatments, CBT deals with your current problems, rather than focusing on issues from your past.

It looks for practical ways to improve your state of mind on a daily basis.

(NHS Overview)

In practical terms, particularly with regard to the CBT programmes and eBooks I have produced, we use the principles of CBT to have guided conversations with young people.  We’re not using invasive psychotherapy techniques – we’re having conversations with a purpose.

CBT is recommended by DfE and NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) for use with school age children, and virtually anyone can guide these conversations with the guidance I provide.

It’s backed up by vast amounts of research and data and is the ‘Gold Standard’ of talking therapies – so says NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health)

Mostly because it’s backed by lots of evidence, but also because it’s effective and low cost in terms of finances and curriculum time.

CBT is commonly carried out as a series of guided conversations between young people and a staff members (adults) so it also helps to build positive relationships – another crucial factor in good mental health.

It’s also not invasive – none of the psychoanalysis type approaches – and it focuses on the “now” problem, rather than the “past” problem.  Consequently, it focuses on managing thoughts and behaviours going forward rather than trying to “fix” the past.

With my Pastoral Handbooks and Targted Interventions, as long as you can listen non-judgementally, and display empathy as well as build positive relationships with young people, you’re good to go.

It’s a talking therapy and your role is to guide and listen.  It all seems so simple… mostly because it is.

But simple doesn’t equate to ineffective – it just makes it very accessible and extremely effective at helping young people.

The only real downside to CBT is if the young person doesn’t want to change (or can’t for some self-preservative reason).

Because it is conversational in it’s nature, isn’t an invasive psychoanalytical therapy, and because it focusses on the now and beyond rather than the past, failed CBT very rarely makes anything any worse.

The usual reasons for CBT not being effective include student refusal to engage in the process, unsuitable facilitator and/or environment.

There is no failure, though – only feedback… what can we do differently to help it succeed?

As previously mentioned, there a number of reasons CBT doesn’t work.

Having a comfortable (physical and emotional) environment in which to practise CBT is important.  Those engaging with the process will likely be revealing parts of their life and emotions that they rarely reveal to anyone.  Building positive relationships requires trust between both parties, and having a safe environment to work in is a good start.

Initially there’s the cost of the programme/books

• Pastoral Handbooks £40-45
• Targeted Interventions (for schools) £90
• Targeted Interventions (for Parents/Carers) £10

For our part that’s it!  You buy your book or programme and it’s yours for as many uses as you need in your setting/with your children/wards.  No ongoing costs.

CBT has many benefits, but my programmes are specifically designed to benefit you and young people because:

• they’re simple to use
• can be used by ANY staff or parent/carer
• no ongoing costs
• provide young people with lifelong tools and techniques
• uses proven therapy techniques
• adaptable for the needs of staff and young people
• low cost/resource
• written specifically for school staff to use or parents/carers to use

We’re aware a small number of schools use software to screen out junk and spam email, and as a small company we occassionally get caught up in these “Spam” filters.

When you buy our downloadable products we send you an email with the confirmation and links to download your books.

In the first instance check your spam/junk folder (or get your IT department to do it); you’ll be looking for an email from the @samanthagarner.co.uk domain (at least one!)

Next, ask your IT department to check if their spam filters are rejecting emails from the samanthagarner.co.uk domain and to remedy this so we can get your details/downloads to you.

Finally, if all else fails, then email us at office@samanthagarner.co.uk and we’ll arrange to get you your downloads as soon as we can.

The short answer is yes, you can!

Unfortunately, because of the additional processing we have to do to, there is a £10 (GBP) processing fee for every purchase order/invoice order we take.

Using PO/Invoice ordering will also delay you getting your e-books, because we can’t send them until payment has cleared.

Sorry about that.

It’s not too complicated, we hope.

We offer the Targeted Interventions to Education providers and to parents/carers on different licenses (and at different costs!).  The “Education Providers” version of the programme contains more detail with regard to using the intervention in different ways; for example as a single student intervention, or as a group intervention.  It’s also intended to be used multiple times, with different students, depending on the need.  It is restricted to a single site – so Academic Trusts with multiple schools/sites would need to purchase multiple copies to comply with the license requirements.

The parent/carers license is intended to be used with the purchasers own children/wards, multiple times.  The key difference being that it should only be used for their own children/wards.  There is also different information provided to assist parents/carers to help the child/ward through the intervention – they’re unlikely to be using it in a group setting, for example.  Think of it like any other self-help book that you could buy on the high street; you wouldn’t photocopy it multiple times and give it to other people because of copyright… and that’s broadly the expectation here.

If you’re still not sure, then please get in touch using the form below and we’ll clarify for you, in plain English.