Overcoming Anger and Irritability

DR WILLIAM DAVIES graduated in psychology from University College London and completed his postgraduate clinical training at the University of Birmingham, England. He is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and head of APT, The Association for Psychological Therapies, one of the UKs leading providers of training for Mental Health professionals. Dr Davies was previously Head of Forensic Psychology in the Trent Regional Secure Unit and Head of Psychology at St Andrews Hospital, Northampton a national resource for patients needing specialised care. Dr Davies has written and taught numerous courses and workshops, most notably The RAID Course for working with extreme behavior, and Preventing Face-to-Face Violence, each of which has been attended by well over 10,000 professionals.

The aim of the Overcoming series is to enable people with a range of common problems and disorders to take control of their own recovery program. Each title, with its specially tailored program, is devised by a practising clinician using the latest techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques which have been shown to be highly effective in helping people overcome their problems by changing the way they think about themselves and their difficulties. The series was initiated in 1993 by Peter Cooper, Professor of Psychology at Reading University in the UK whose book on overcoming bulimia nervosa and binge-eating continues to help many people in the USA, the UK, Australasia and Europe. Many books in the Overcoming series are recommended by the UK Department of Health under the Books on Prescription scheme.

Titles in the series include:

OVERCOMING ANGER AND IRRITABILITY

OVERCOMING ANOREXIA NERVOSA

OVERCOMING ANXIETY

OVERCOMING BODY IMAGE PROBLEMS

OVERCOMING BULIMIA NERVOSA AND BINGE-EATING

OVERCOMING CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

OVERCOMING CHRONIC FATIGUE

OVERCOMING CHRONIC PAIN

OVERCOMING COMPULSIVE GAMBLING

OVERCOMING DEPERSONALIZATON AND FEELINGS OF UNREALITY

OVERCOMING DEPRESSION

OVERCOMING GRIEF

OVERCOMING HEALTH ANXIETY

OVERCOMING INSOMNIA AND SLEEP PROBLEMS

OVERCOMING LOW SELF-ESTEEM

OVERCOMING MOOD SWINGS

OVERCOMING OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER

OVERCOMING PANIC

OVERCOMING PARANOID AND SUSPICIOUS THOUGHTS

OVERCOMING PROBLEM DRINKING

OVERCOMING RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS

OVERCOMING SEXUAL PROBLEMS

OVERCOMING SOCIAL ANXIETY AND SHYNESS

OVERCOMING STRESS

OVERCOMING TRAUMATIC STRESS

OVERCOMING WEIGHT PROBLEMS

OVERCOMING OUR CHILDS FEARS AND WORRIES

OVERCOMING YOUR CHILDS SHYNESS AND SOCIAL ANXIETY

OVERCOMING YOUR SMOKING HABIT

All titles in the series are available by mail order.

Please see the order form at the back of this book.

www.overcoming.co.uk

ROBINSON

London

Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Robinson in 2000

This edition published by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009

Copyright William Davies 2000, 2009

The right of William Davies to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library.

Important Note
This book is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice or treatment.
Any person with a condition requiring medical attention should consult a qualified medical practitioner or suitable therapist.

ISBN 978-1-84901-131-0

Printed and bound in the EU

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Reading through previous Acknowledgements contained in books in this series I see that the form is to thank all the wonderful people that have written about and researched Cognitive Therapy. Quite right too, I hope that is taken as read. More immediately, however, I would like to thank Amy and Helen for the work they put in to typing this book at very short notice, under great pressure, and with very little irritation! (One or two assertive comments perhaps, but probably well justified!) Also to Paul Gilbert for pushing forward what he terms my approachable writing style and, just as much, to the publishers for creating a series that is so relevant and important that it makes one enthusiastic to write for it. Finally, although I cant imagine they will ever read this, an acknowledgement to Danny and Vicky who feature in one of the many case studies and who may well be recognised for the well-known characters they are. A special word of thanks to them for the endless entertainment they provide, and of reassurance that their inclusion is not yet another dig at them, but is simply intended to create an entirely non-malicious smile in the reader.

Why a cognitive behavioral approach?

Over the past two or three decades, there has been something of a revolution in the field of psychological treatment. Freud and his followers had a major impact on the way in which psychological therapy was conceptualized, and psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy dominated the field for the first half of this century. So, long-term treatments were offered which were designed to uncover the childhood roots of personal problems offered, that is, to those who could afford it. There was some attempt by a few health service practitioners with a public conscience to modify this form of treatment (by, for example, offering short-term treatment or group therapy), but the demand for help was so great that this had little impact. Also, whilst numerous case histories can be found of people who are convinced that psychotherapy did help them, practitioners of this form of therapy showed remarkably little interest in demonstrating that what they were offering their patients was, in fact, helpful.

As a reaction to the exclusivity of psychodynamic therapies and the slender evidence for its usefulness, in the 1950s and 1960s a set of techniques was developed, broadly collectively termed behavior therapy. These techniques shared two basic features. First, they aimed to remove symptoms (such as anxiety) by dealing with those symptoms themselves, rather than their deep-seated underlying historical causes. Second, they were techniques, loosely related to what laboratory psychologists were finding out about the mechanisms of learning, which were formulated in testable terms. Indeed, practitioners of behavior therapy were committed to using techniques of proven value or, at worst, of a form which could potentially be put to the test. The area where these techniques proved of most value was in the treatment of anxiety disorders, especially specific phobias (such as fear of animals or heights) and agoraphobia, both notoriously difficult to treat using conventional psychotherapies.

After an initial flush of enthusiasm, discontent with behavior therapy grew. There were a number of reasons for this, an important one of which was the fact that behavior therapy did not deal with the internal thoughts which were so obviously central to the distress that patients were experiencing. In this context, the fact that behavior therapy proved so inadequate when it came to the treatment of depression highlighted the need for major revision. In the late 1960s and early 1970s a treatment was developed specifically for depression called cognitive therapy. The pioneer in this enterprise was an American psychiatrist, Professor Aaron T. Beck, who developed a theory of depression which emphasized the importance of peoples depressed styles of thinking. He also specified a new form of therapy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Becks work has changed the nature of psychotherapy, not just for depression but for a range of psychological problems.