Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) is a fusion of cognitive (CBT/REBT) therapy; narrative (talking and writing)
therapy; psycho-dynamic (processing of feelings) therapy; and other helpful systems of counselling and therapy ideas.
Dr
Jim Byrne
February 2010
WHAT KIND OF COGNITIVE THERAPY?
Hello, My name is Jim Byrne. I am a
Licensed Fellow of the International Society of Professional Counsellors (FISPC); and I have completed the degree of Doctorate
in Counselling at the University of Manchester. I also have a higher Diploma (With Distinction) in Counselling Psychology
and Psychotherapy from Rusland College, Bath. I was trained as a Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapist (REBT) in 1998-99, by
Dr Al Raitt, at the old Institute for REBT in Bristol.
I subsequently took
a range of other forms of training, and began to develop my own form of therapy, which is a fusion of:
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT);
Transactional Analysis (TA);
Zen philosophy (as described by Alan Watts in The Way of Zen);
Narrative therapy,
based on the psychological insight that the thinking of individuals is dominated by socialized language, stories, scripts
and blueprints for life; and that we can rethink those narratives at any time in our lives;
Moral philosophy. For example, R.M Hare's Universal Prescriptivism; or (secular) Buddhist morality, or other form
of 'virtue ethics'; or John Rawls' Ethic of Justice. (My argument here is two-fold: (1) That we cannot be complete human beings
without becoming socially responsible and engaged in caring relationships; and (2) that the happiest people are probably those
who live their lives from a system of integrity, and a commitment to lead a good, prosocial life). And:
I also incorporate some psychoanalysis, of the type developed by the British Object Relations school
- which acknowledges the centrality of relationship to human existence and functioning, beginning with the relationship between
mother and baby.
I call this fusion of therapies and philosophies Cognitive
Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT). CENT is not primarily a "listening therapy", like Rogerian counselling;
although I do a good deal of listening. It is, instead, an active form of 'philosophical coaching', in which I teach my clients
to become their own counsellors; to outgrow me; and to figure out how to control and manage their own thinking, feeling and
behaviour, in every area of their lives. However, I do include a good deal of 'reparenting', where appropriate, and use of
the relationship as the primary vehicle of client change. For a fuller discription of CENT, please go here: What is CENT?
The Buddha is famous for advising his 'followers' to "find out for yourself".
And that is what I teach. How to begin to understand your life situation; and how to begin to find out for yourself. I offer
a presence, a 'being with' relationship, some insights and analysis, some theories and models of human functioning, and encouragement
to take responsibility for your own life, its direction, content and destination.