Update: 17th July 2019
We have decided to re-release this book – originally published n 2016 – in a slightly modified form, to make it available at a lower cost. We made this decision because of an expressed demand from interested researchers in the field of counselling a psychotherapy.
Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An introduction to the theory and practice of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied-Narrative Therapy
Preface to the Updated Edition (2019)
This book was originally published in 2016, in a format which proved to be too costly, mostly because it was extensively illustrated in full colour.
It has since been officially replaced by two other books:
And/or:
However, we have found that some researchers want to read the original 2016 book, because:
- It has historic relevance; and:
- It still contains some elements that did not get reproduced in the two books (mentioned above), which replaced it.
So we have removed all the colour, and many of the unnecessary illustrations, in order to bring the cost down for those individuals who still want to buy this book.
However, buyer be warned: If you have already read either of the two books listed above, you will find only minor elements of novelty in this reissued copy of the 2016 book.
Perhaps the best way for you to decide whether or not this book is right for you is to read the Foreword, the Contents Pages, and the Index, below.
We believe this book could still be the best introduction to Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT), for counsellors and students.
~~~
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
15th January 2019
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An introduction to Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT)
By Dr Jim Byrne (with Renata Taylor-Byrne)
Announcement of publication – 4th July 2016
This long awaited book is now available at Amazon stores around the world. If you have already read some of the advanced publicity, you might now want to go to amazon.co.uk, or amazon.com, to buy your copy. If you need further information before making your buying decision, then please read on:
What is this book about?
Have you ever noticed how life can look so difficult after you’ve had a bad night’s sleep? Or when you’re really hungry? Or when you’ve got a job interview to attend?
Or when your football team loses a crucial match? Or you’ve heard that your job is under threat?
Or after you’ve skipped your exercise class several times? Or the morning after you’ve hammered several glasses of wine?
Or how your sense of who you are changes when your parents walk in the room?
We are changeable and complex creatures, and our diets, exercise regimes, thoughts, amount and quality of sleep, quality of personal relationships, our social and financial situations, and our general level of stress hormones in our bodies, all play a significant part in how we experience our lives.
To change our lives for the better, we have to take all these factors into account. Otherwise the changes we desire won’t come about, or won’t last. It’s not enough to simply change your self-talk, or inner dialogue, or to think more positively, or to visualize a better life for yourself!
That’s why, after fifteen years of research into most of the major theories of therapy, I’ve created a counselling model which finally takes all of these important aspects of human functioning into account.
Talk therapy has a lot to offer people who are suffering for one reason or another, but sadly it can’t cure people on its own.
Your lifestyle has a massive effect! This includes your diet and exercise regime. Also: How rested are you? Are you treated with respect and love in your closest relationships? Can you manage your emotions when you’re verbally attacked; and soothe yourself quickly and bounce back? Do you feel able to shape your life? Is your social environment helping you in your daily life, or keeping you stuck?
My book is an investigation into how we function best as human beings, from birth onwards, and how we can use the most valuable insights from a range of counselling theories and philosophies, to help us build a better life for ourselves. But also, our lifestyle is a crucial element in how we create a better life for ourselves, and this is finally, to an increasing extent, being taken into account by some health professionals.
I’ve called my counselling model E-CENT counselling. What do the E-C-E-N-T stand for? Firstly, the Emotions; then the thoughts and beliefs (or Cognitions); and the influence of the body (Embodiment including diet and exercise); plus the client’s stories and scripts (Narratives) about themselves, other people and the world.
But we see the client’s roots as always beginning in the family of origin; and the life journey as an important further shaping of the client. We are not alone in waking up to the previous narrowness of ‘the talking cure’.
For example we now have ‘holistic psychiatrists’ and ‘holistic neurologists’ and ‘integrative medicine’ and ‘nutritional therapy’ emerging in various parts of the UK and the US. These new categories of professional help show that there is a growing recognition of the importance of the integration of the mind and body when helping people with physical and mental problems.
This book will be of value to the following people:
(1) Counsellors, psychotherapists, coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, educators and others;
(2) Students of counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, psychiatry, social work and related disciplines;
(3) Self-help and personal development enthusiasts;
(4) Parents who are raising young children; and:
(5) People who are involved in the social and emotional education of children and young people.
~~~
What you will gain from reading this book includes:
(1) A quick introduction to some of the most helpful insights of attachment theory, affect regulation theory, interpersonal neurobiology, and some narrative therapies;
(2) A range of useful models and processes for the structuring of counselling and therapy encounters, and self-development activities; and:
(3) A useful grounding in the research on the role of diet and exercise in the creation of dysregulated and regulated moods and emotions.
We hope you get this book, and enjoy applying it in your own personal and professional life.
Best wishes,
Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling.
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
Feedback from readers of Holistic Counselling in Practice:
Reader No.1:
“I really like your new book a lot. The first thing I’ve appreciated is the simple English in which the book is written, even though it’s describing complex theories and models of mind, and this is a good feature I have always found in all your books.
“I bought this latest book because I want to go deeper in understanding the Six Windows Model and also to find other practical advice and guidance. I’ll study the theory of the six windows model, then the chapter about human emotions. I have appreciated a lot the suggested activities for self-help enthusiast that are rich in contents.”
L.P.C., Madrid.
~~~
Reader No.2:
“I’ve read the first twenty pages of your new book – Holistic Counselling in Practice – and I have already changed my mind about some of my former beliefs about what a human being is, and how the ‘mind’ works (or what the ‘body-mind’ is!) I think I will learn an enormous amount of valuable lessons from completing my study of your book.”
P.J.T., London.
~~~
Reader No.3:
“I’ve skim-read Holistic Counselling, and dipped into some interesting parts. Some of the new models are fascinating. And it’s so easy to read. The appendix material is a great treasure trove of information and ideas. And I appreciate the various approaches to practical problem-solving.”
O.R.S., Oxford, UK.
~~~
Update – 22nd June 2016
Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An introduction to Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy
By Dr Jim Byrne, with Renata Taylor-Byrne
Foreword
In these pages you will find a detailed introduction to the theory and practice of one of the most recent, and most comprehensive forms of holistic counselling and psychotherapy. This new system (for helping people to optimize their positive experiences of life, and to process their negative experiences), necessarily deals with emotions, thinking, stories and narratives, plus bodily states; and thus is called Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT).
This book has been designed to be helpful for three audiences:
(1) Counsellors, psychotherapists, coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, educators and other;
(2) Students of counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, psychiatry, social work and related disciplines;
(3) Self-help and personal development enthusiasts.
The content of this book has been a long time incubating, at the very least since 2001 when I first tried to defend the ABC model of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT)/ Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) by relating it to the three core components of Freud’s model of the mind (or psyche): (1) the Id (or It [or baby-at-birth]); the Ego (or sense of self, or personality); and the Superego (or internalized other, including social and moral rules). The more I tried to defend REBT, the more its core models fell apart in my hands!
At the same time, I was studying thirteen different systems of counselling and therapy, from Freud and Jung, via Rogers and Perls, and the behaviourists, to the cognitivists and existentialists.
Later, I considered Plato’s model of the mind, alongside the Buddhist and Stoic philosophies of mind.
Into this mix, at some point, Attachment theory arrived, and that helped to make more sense of the mix. Attachment theory and Object relations theory eventually formed the core of my model of the mother-baby dyad, and the way in which the mind of the baby was born out of the interpenetration (or overlapping interactions) of the physical baby and the cultural mother.
And this gave rise to a greater awareness of the individual counselling client as a ‘social individual’, who is ‘wired up’ (neurologically) by social stories to be a creature of habit, living out of historic scripts; and viewing the world through non-conscious frames which dictate how things ‘show up’ in their automatic (cumulative-interpretive) apprehension of the external world.
As these developments were reaching fruition, I also discovered the insights of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB – Siegel 2015) and Affect Regulation Theory (Hill, 2015).
~~~
But even beyond those developments, I also became increasingly aware that, because we are body-minds, our experience of sleep, diet, exercise, alcohol, water consumption, and socio-economic circumstances – (in addition to current and historic relationships) – have as much to do with our emotional disturbances (very often) as do our psychological habits of mind.
And in Appendix E, Renata Taylor-Byrne presents compelling evidence, from reliable sources, that anti-depressants are not nearly as effective as has been claimed; that drug companies hide negative trial results; that the real pills often fail to outperform placebo (sugar) pills; that the real pills are often totally ineffective; that they seem to be addictive, and difficult to get off in some cases; and they have serious side effects (in some cases involving suicidal ideation). And in addition, we agree with those theorists who have argued that physical exercise is at least as effective as anti-depressants; and also that some forms of dietary change can and do reduce and/or eliminate depression. (See Appendices E and F, below).
Counselling and therapy systems have normally ignored the convincing evidence that exercise and diet can change our emotional states. For example, in Woolfe, Dryden and Strawbridge’s (2003) book on counselling psychology, there are no references in the index to diet or physical exercise[i]. As in the case of McLeod (2003)[ii], there is a ‘virtual postscript’ (in Chapter 29 [of 32] in Woolfe, Dryden and Strawbridge) on counselling psychology and the body – which is essentially about using bodily experience in counselling and therapy – as in breath work, and body awareness – though the chapter author (Bill Wahl) also includes a consideration of body-work as such. However, in E-CENT, we consider that touch is too problematical (ethically) to include in our system of counselling. What we do include, because it is now clearly an essential ingredient of the health and well-being of the whole-client (body-brain-mind), is awareness of the role of diet and exercise in the level of emotional disturbance of the client; and an awareness of the need to teach the client that their diet and exercise practices have a significant impact upon their emotional and behavioural performances in the world. (See Appendices E and F).
~~~
This then is a story of counselling and therapy revolution: the radical reformulation of most of our major theories of therapy; and their integration into a completely new view of the social individual as a body-brain-mind-environment whole. Talk therapy has a lot to offer the social individual, but talk therapy alone cannot cure most of the ills of the modern world, which are related to the lifestyle of the client. (Interestingly, lifestyle coaching and lifestyle medicine are beginning to emerge in various quarters, including among some psychiatrists, [who are experimenting with diet – ‘Holistic psychiatry’]; some neurologists [‘Holistic neurology’]; and some medical doctors [‘Integrative medicine’, and ‘Nutritional therapy’]. But none of these approaches is nearly as complete or holistic as E-CENT theory and practice).
The world of counselling and therapy is being transformed (once again!). And in this book, in Chapter 3, we have summarized the core insights arising out of those various revolutions which have already occurred, which have relevance for counselling today. We have also explored the very latest thinking about how to understand and manage human emotions – especially anger, anxiety and depression, in Chapter 5.
Chapter 4 deals with our approach to helping clients to reframe their unavoidable problems – using our Six Windows Model – which draws on the insights of moderate Buddhism and moderate Stoicism. The theoretical rational for this windows model is explored in Appendix A, on Frame Theory.
Chapter 6 explores some of the most important and helpful models we use in E-CENT, to guide our counselling sessions, and to help the client to perfink (perceive, feel and think) more self-supportingly.
There are also substantial appendices on the roles of diet and exercise in the development and reduction of client-problems of anxiety, anger and depression. And there is a fifty page chapter (7) on how to use E-CENT theory to promote effective self-management for self-help enthusiasts.
The core beliefs of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT) are summarized in twenty principles, in Chapter 3.
Finally, there is a good deal of information on emotional needs assessment; desensitization of traumatized clients; and the role of morality in living a good life – (including the importance of refraining from giving counselling clients [and those outside the Chinese wall of the counselling room] permission to be bad!)
Counselling and therapy have been in a constant state of evolution and revolution since the creation of psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud, in the late nineteenth century. This book represents one of the most recent, and most comprehensive, reformulations.
I hope you enjoy this volume, and that you find some useful theories, techniques and models within for use in your own life, and/or with the people you aim to help.
Dr Jim Byrne
Doctor of Counselling
Hebden Bridge
June 2016
~~~
[i] Woolfe, R., Dryden, W., and Strawbridge, S. (eds) (2003) Handbook of Counselling Psychology. Second Edition. London: Sage Publications.
[ii] McLeod, J. (2003) An Introduction to Counselling. Third Edition. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 21 of 21; section 6 of 9 within that final chapter! No references to diet. This is the totality of his commentary on physical exercise: “The therapeutic value of physical exercise is well established. But, for the most part, counselling remains centred on talking rather than doing”. (Page 523 of 527!)
~~~
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
Update – 13th May 2016
Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An Introduction to Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy
By Dr Jim Byrne, with Renata Taylor-Byrne
Chapter 1 begins like this:
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Counsellors and their clients
Counsellors and psychotherapists devote their lives to caring for the minds of their clients – the lives of their clients. They wrestle with difficult situations, challenging goals, and with dysregulated emotions (like grief and loss, anger and panic, relationship conflict, and mental confusion).
Innovative counsellors are constantly looking for new ways to help their clients. They mostly begin their careers with a single model of counselling, and many of them add in techniques and models and ideas from any source that seems likely to help their client. After a few years of practice, their system of counselling is a hybrid of many different approaches. Although they begin with a very simple model of counselling and the nature of the counselling client, those perceptions changes and evolves over the years.
… End of extract …
~~~
The section headings in Chapter 1 are as follows:
1.2 What is E-CENT counselling? – 1.3 Our unique perspective – 1.4 The status of E-CENT theory – 1.5 An accidental evolution of theory – 1.6 Views of science – 1.7 The case against using case studies – 1.8 Subjectivity of case studies – 1.9 Narratives and stories – 1.10 The E-CENT approach (to narratives) – 1.11 Defining Attachment Theory more clearly – 1.12 The role of the individual’s social environment – 1.13 The centrality of relationship (in the life of the socialized individual) – 1.14 The need for emotional availability, and sensitive caring (between mother and baby, and between counsellor and client) – 1.15 Attachment in psychotherapy – 1.16 Attachment in E-CENT counselling theory – 1.17 Brief summary of some of the models used in E-CENT counselling and therapy.
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An introduction to the theory and practice of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied-Narrative Therapy
~~~
By Dr Jim Byrne FISPC
With Renata Taylor-Byrne BSc(Hons)Psychol
Hebden Bridge: The Institute for E-CENT Publications, in cooperation with the CreateSpace Platform (Amazon)
~~~
“This book will help individuals to understand the human body-brain-mind-environment-whole; the socialized individual; and present a lot of practical models and techniques which can guide potent processes of counselling, therapy and self-development.”
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
Post No.1: A description of the book, below… 2nd May 2016
Post No.2: The Contents Pages… 4th May 2016
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
The culmination of nine years of research, application and writing – reflecting eighteen years of counselling experience – this book on holistic counselling will change how many counsellors think about human nature and culture; how they understand their clients’ body-mind-environment-whole interactional processes; how they help their clients to change and grow.
If you want to know the shape of this book in advance, try to imagine this: (1) A subtle integration of key elements of rational, cognitive and behaviour therapy, with psychoanalysis, transactional analysis, affective neuroscience, attachment theory, narrative therapy and affect regulation. (2) A range of models and techniques which are easy to introduce and apply with clients. (3) And guidance on how to understand human emotion, and how to manage anger, anxiety and depression.
“This book helps ‘individuals’ to understand the inextricable connections between the brain-mind-body-environment-relationships, and the need to manager all of those elements in order to have a happy, successful life. Its unique advantage is that it is based on nine years of solid, detailed research and application of the latest scientific thinking about interpersonal neurobiology, affect regulation, and attachment theory, – but digested into plain English for easy use by counsellors, students, and self-help enthusiasts”.
In addition to outlining the theory of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT), this book also provides a lot of practical advice on how to operationalize these ideas in counselling and therapy sessions; and in self-help and personal development activities.
This book was designed to be helpful to three audiences:
(1) Counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches, social workers, educators and related professions;
(2) Students of counselling, psychotherapy, social work, and related disciplines; and:
(3) Self-help and personal development enthusiasts.
Get the book today, and see how it can enhance your understanding of the socialized individual (as a body-mind-environment-whole) and transform yourself and your practice.
Based on Dr Byrne’s eighteen years of counselling experience, with more than 850 clients, it shows that the body-mind cannot be ‘cured’ through exclusive talk-therapy, in the absence of some work on diet, exercise, relaxation, social relationships, people skills, and a whole range of other factors which enter into the healthy functioning of a human body-mind.
This book will help individuals to understand the human body-mind-environment-whole; the socialized individual; and present a lot of practical models which can guide potent processes of counselling, therapy and self-development.
~~~
This book is available through Amazon outlets around the world, in two formats: Kindle eBook, and Paperback:
To get your Kindle eBook version, please click the Amazon link that serves your home area:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Netherlands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
And here are the links to buy your Paperback copy:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Irl | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon France |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Canada |
~~~
The Institute for Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT) 
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