Topic Tuesday // Mindfulness and CBT for carers // 21 March, 7 - 9pm AEDT

wow, already one hour into the discussion, but we got another hour to go! So there's plenty of time get your questions in for @snowlee127.

Hi @snowlee127

My biggest thing is finding a Balance ?

@Determined @CherryBomb Yes and that is also the reason why for a non-pharmaceutical intervention to be effective, it takes at least 8 sessions of interventions. I often think about it this way; I won't expect to see a difference in my body if I went to the gym for just one day. It is the same principle of actually training our brain, training our pre-frontal cortex. One thing about CBT is, people, end up judging themselves when they had the automatic negative reactions. I think personally, that's when mindfulness practice became important, to be able to go 'hmm, thats interesting, I am having this reaction. Maybe I need to train my mind a bit more'.

@snowlee127 in which context is "acceptance" spoken of. Is that deemed of a passive or proactive nature. ie does it mean understanding to accept or passive acceptance?

@snowlee127, I'd never thought of it that way. Setting ourselves realistic expectations is so important. And we can't expect intstant results when changing behaviour and thinking.

@Marie7 welcome to the conversvation! Feel free to ask snowlee127 any questions about CBT that you have.

@mindbootcamp This is a great question! And you are right; carer took a lot longer to complete the online course than many consumers. Again, this reflects the busy schedule that carers have, it is more than a full-time job. The initial results showed at the baseline (before the carer starts the online CBT ), on average, carer showed high distress level, mild depression level, and mild anxiety level. For the carers who successfully completed the online CBT course, we can see a reduction in all of the three areas. The average distress level went from very high to moderate. The average depression level went from moderately severe to mild, and the average anxiety also dropped from moderate to mild. I think this is a lesson that we learned that the design of the online course may need to be more flexible in terms of the timeframe.