Treating Stress with Metacognitive Therapy

Stress has become a fact of life for far too many people today.

Until now, the treatment of stress has mostly focused on behavioral changes, combined with talking about and noticing every thought, feeling, and sensation. But according to the metacognitive approach, this excessive focus on the self is what actually creates the problem. Worrying and ruminating are not simply a symptom of stress, but the causes of stress, preventing stress sufferers from fostering real change. Real change can only occur when the metacognitive management systems underlying behaviour are addressed by focusing not on what, but on how stress sufferers respond to their thinking. The thought is not important, but how they react to it, makes the difference.

"Treating Stress with Metacognitive Therapy" provides therapists, practitioners and others who work with treating stress, an introduction to metacognitive therapy, showing how this approach can be applied effectively to treat stress-related problems. This book comprises concrete examples of how a course of metacognitive therapy can be planned. The reader is invited into the therapy room to learn: how to apply the exercises of this method; what to remember during the therapy process; and which questions are important to ask the client.