Olympic athletes and sports personalities by nature have to be resilient but receive extra positive mental training in order to enhance their ability to bounce back from defeat or a poor performance.
New research has taken this sport psychology and developed it into a self-help program for people suffering from anxiety and depression.
The positive mental training programme was first coined by a GP and his public health specialist wife based in Edinburgh. The program has since been endorsed by the Royal College of GPs and used by endless numbers of athletes with great success.
The training program is based on listening to a series of CDs which help users to improve their optimism and break the negative feedback cycle of anxiety and depression.
Dr Dobbin and his wife have conducted a clinical trial comparing the self help CD’s to other forms of anti-depressant treatment, the research will be published in early 2013. Currently the program has been used by 50,000 patients and has been shown to reduce the need for anti-depressants by 20 percent.
The program founders have also formed a charity to promote the programme and have developed a two-day training course which doctors can attend to help them understand the program and will allow them to prescribe it to their patients on the NHS.
Stressmanagement.co.uk welcome the possibility for GP’s offering patients something other than pills or a long wait to see a therapist as a treatment for depression and anxiety.
