Living Well with a Long Term Condition
- The 'Living Well with your Long Term Condition' course aims to help you better understand the difficult emotions you might be experiencing and learn clinically proven Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) techniques to overcome common symptoms of stress, anxiety or low mood in relation to your Long Term Condition
People struggling with the emotional impacts of stress, as well as low mood and anxiety as a result of Diabetes, Long Covid, a cardiac condition or a respiratory condition.
For those happy to attend a zoom call each week in a room where they are unlikely to be disturbed.
Session summary
This is an online presentation style course where facilitators will present information and talk you through tools and techniques for 50 minutes. There will be a short break and a space to ask questions and share your experience of having a Long Term Condition with other attendees. However, there will be no need to share in-depth personal information, it is fine to just listen and learn and share only if you feel comfortable doing so.
What is involved in this course:
This online course runs for five weekly sessions.
Each session is 1 hour 30 minutes long, with a 10 minute break in the middle.
The course will be facilitated by 2 Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners, who have been trained to deliver low intensity cognitive behavioural interventions for anxiety and depression.
The 'Living Well with your Long Term Condition' course aims to help you better understand the difficult emotions you might be experiencing and learn clinically proven Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) techniques to overcome common symptoms of stress, anxiety or low mood in relation to your Long Term Condition.
What is covered/what will I learn?
·
Session
1: Welcome to the Course
o
How
what we do and think affects how we feel.
o
How
stress affects the body.
o
Skills
around relaxation, goal setting, lifestyle changes and improving sleep.
·
Session
2: Managing our Mood
o
What
low mood is and how it affects our behaviour.
o
What
actions you can take to improve motivation and boost mood.
o
How to
overcome common barriers to activity and exercise.
·
Session
3: Managing Thoughts
o
How
stress can affect our thinking.
o
How to
identify unhelpful thinking styles and challenge unhelpful thoughts.
o
How to
manage unhelpful thoughts, using the STOPP Technique.
·
Session
4: Managing Worry
o
How to
identify different types of worries and how to manage them effectively.
o
The
relationship between worry and tolerating uncertainty.
o
Skills
to refocus your attention using 'Worry Time' and 'Problem Solving' techniques.
·
Session
5: Facing your Fears and Bringing it all Together
o
How the
role of avoidance and reassurance keeps anxiety going.
o
Techniques
to help you to face your fears and regain confidence.
o
How to
develop a future management plan and prepare for possible barriers to your
progress.
What will I get out of it?
· New information, ideas and techniques about stress and
how to manage it.
· A chance to ask questions of the facilitators.
· The opportunity to be in a virtual room with others who are
going through something similar to you.
· A weekly workbook covering the session material and
exercises to do in the week, which you can keep.
· Please note that facilitators cannot offer additional one
to one support unless there are concerns for your safety. If you feel you need
individual support, please complete the self-referral form on the contact page and a clinician will be
able to review your options with you.
·
Session
1: Welcome to the Course
o
How
what we do and think affects how we feel.
o
How
stress affects the body.
o
Skills
around relaxation, goal setting, lifestyle changes and improving sleep.
·
Session
2: Managing our Mood
o
What
low mood is and how it affects our behaviour.
o
What
actions you can take to improve motivation and boost mood.
o
How to
overcome common barriers to activity and exercise.
·
Session
3: Managing Thoughts
o
How
stress can affect our thinking.
o
How to
identify unhelpful thinking styles and challenge unhelpful thoughts.
o
How to
manage unhelpful thoughts, using the STOPP Technique.
·
Session
4: Managing Worry
o
How to
identify different types of worries and how to manage them effectively.
o
The
relationship between worry and tolerating uncertainty.
o
Skills
to refocus your attention using 'Worry Time' and 'Problem Solving' techniques.
·
Session
5: Facing your Fears and Bringing it all Together
o
How the
role of avoidance and reassurance keeps anxiety going.
o
Techniques
to help you to face your fears and regain confidence.
o How to develop a future management plan and prepare for possible barriers to your progress.
What will I get out of it?
· New information, ideas and techniques about stress and
how to manage it.
· A chance to ask questions of the facilitators.
· The opportunity to be in a virtual room with others who are
going through something similar to you.
· A weekly workbook covering the session material and
exercises to do in the week, which you can keep.
· Please note that facilitators cannot offer additional one
to one support unless there are concerns for your safety. If you feel you need
individual support, please complete the self-referral form on the contact page and a clinician will be
able to review your options with you.
How can I access it?
• Select the 'Register' button.
• Complete the online registration form.
• We will send you an email with further information, asking you to confirm your place on the course.
• Alternatively, if you would prefer to complete this form offline or by hand, you can download a word version of the form and email it in or print and send it to us. Details for this are on the form.
What will I need to do?
· Enter the zoom call on the allocated day and time each week.
· You will not be required to say anything on the zoom call however we do welcome questions and there will be an opportunity to chat with facilitators and other participants at the end of each session
· Have a go at the exercises in the session so you can see how the ideas relate to your specific situation.
· You will get the most out of the course if you practise the skills and techniques during the week.
· Complete a weekly questionnaire so we can monitor progress & evaluate our service. This is a national standard for our service and is essential in ensuring we can continue providing free psychological therapies on the NHS.
Top tips:
• Add step2groups@nhs.net to your email contacts, to ensure you get your invite email.
• Check you Junk/ Spam folders if you don't hear from us within a week.
• Call/email us if you have any problems!