Topic
Depression & mood
Depression is more than sadness: it often comes with a loss of interest, tiredness, sleep problems and very harsh thoughts about oneself. The resources in this topic explain these mechanisms and offer approaches whose effectiveness has been evaluated, such as behavioural activation. Others are written for relatives, for new parents and for people affected by bipolar disorder. If thoughts of death appear, speak to a doctor or an emergency service without delay.
25 resources
For the public
Depression in children and teenagers: a guide for parents
He slams doors, no longer sees his friends and sleeps until two in the afternoon on Saturdays; she has a stomach ache every morning and keeps saying she is useless. This guide helps you recognise depression behind irritability or withdrawal, ask about suicide without beating about the bush and make the home safe. It describes the treatments that have proved themselves, what is honestly known about medication in young people, and a seven-step method you can start this very week.
Menopause: mood, sleep and hot flushes, and what psychology can do
Hot flushes in the middle of a meeting, nights broken by sweats, a mood that wobbles for no obvious reason: the perimenopause can shake up far more than the body. This guide explains what is happening, what the large studies say about mood and sleep, and what cognitive behavioural therapy can change, with a step-by-step method for hot flushes, nights, low spirits, work, self-image and sexuality.
After the birth: baby blues or postnatal depression?
Tears on the third day are often the baby blues, and they pass within a few days. A sadness, an anxiety or an emptiness that lasts for weeks is something else, and it can be treated. This guide helps new parents and those close to them to tell the difference, to recognise the one situation that calls for action the same day, to understand the frightening thoughts that go through the minds of so many parents, and to get back on their feet, starting with the nights.
Someone close with bipolar disorder: understanding and supporting
Your partner, your child or your parent went through a period when they stopped sleeping and spent money without a thought for the cost, then months when they could no longer get out of bed, and you were told it was bipolar disorder. This guide explains what this illness is, what research has shown about the role of families, and what you can do in practice: spot the first signs of an episode, write a plan in advance, talk in a way that calms things down, respond during a high or a low phase, and keep going yourself over the long term.
Helping someone close who is depressed
Someone you love no longer gets up, no longer replies, refuses everything you suggest — and you no longer know whether to press on or say nothing. This guide sets out what genuinely helps, what makes things worse without anyone meaning it to, how to talk about suicidal thoughts, how to bring someone to care without forcing them, and how to keep going yourself without losing your own health.
Understanding depression
Depression is not great sadness: it is an illness that switches off desire, slows the body and distorts thinking. This guide explains what is happening, why withdrawal makes things worse, and what has genuinely proved itself as a way out — starting again through action, working on your thoughts, treating sleep, and knowing when medication or psychotherapy are indicated.
When someone close talks about dying: ask, make safe, stay
A sentence let slip one evening, a worrying message, a silence that weighs: when someone you love speaks of death, you no longer know what to say or do. This guide explains how to ask the question directly, how to judge how urgent it is, how to put dangerous means out of reach, how to build a safety plan, and how to stay alongside in the weeks that follow.
Behavioural activation: fighting depression
A psychological treatment that performed as well as an antidepressant in the most severely depressed people, in a landmark trial. The principle is explained in the opening pages, then put to work in eight steps: observe, spot the avoidance, choose, grade, plan, start, climb, consolidate.
When a parent has a mental illness: supporting the child and the teenager
A mother who no longer gets up, a father in hospital, a parent who drinks or hears voices: many children grow up alongside a parent who has a mental illness, and most of them will not develop that parent's illness. This guide explains what the child goes through, what research has established about the risk and about what protects against it, and how to talk to the child about the illness according to their age, get through a hospital admission, keep the child from becoming the family's carer and protect their life as a child. It offers an eight-week plan and says when to seek help.
Facing cancer: emotions, fear of recurrence, and the people close to you
Feeling afraid, sad or angry after being told you have cancer is nothing abnormal, and your state of mind does not decide how the illness will develop. This guide helps you tell expected distress apart from depression or an anxiety disorder, then offers a step-by-step method for what weighs most: fatigue, the nights, waiting for test results, the fear that the cancer will come back, a changed body, silence in the family. It also says what helps when the illness is advancing, and how the people close to you can keep going.
When your teenager self-harms: understanding it and helping
Marks on a forearm, long sleeves in the middle of summer, a stained tissue at the bottom of a bin: discovering that your child is hurting themselves turns everything upside down. This guide explains what the act does for them, what it says about suicide risk and why you must always ask the question. It then describes what to do: respond without punishing and without promising secrecy, recognise emergencies, make the home safe without turning it into a prison, and find the treatments that have proved themselves.
For professionals
These manuals are written for psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners. Anyone can read a preview; the full text is reserved for practitioners who have submitted proof of their professional status and who hold a professional plan.
Depression in older adults: a therapist's manual
A twelve-session protocol for depression in older people, at home as well as in residential care. First, what is specific to this age: a depression that often comes without sadness, the distinction from a neurocognitive disorder, the debated hypothesis of vascular depression, bereavement, isolation and loss of independence, the illnesses and medicines that belong to the doctor, and a suicide risk that is particularly high in older men. Then the treatment: behavioural activation, problem solving adapted to executive difficulties, work on thoughts, on losses and on connection with others, and life review, in an adapted format — shorter sessions, written materials, home or telephone, a place for the carer. Worksheets to hand over and full references.
Perinatal depression and anxiety: a therapist's manual
A twelve-session protocol, session by session, for depression and anxiety disorders arising in pregnancy and in the first year after birth, based on cognitive behavioural therapy and on interpersonal therapy. Emergencies first — postpartum psychosis, maternal suicide risk, thoughts of harming the baby that must be told apart with care — then sleep, activation, the demands of the good mother, intrusive thoughts, the couple, the role transition, the bond with the baby and a birth experienced as traumatic. The place of medication during pregnancy and breastfeeding, fathers and co-parents, perinatal bereavement, ten worksheets to hand over and full references.
Suicidal behaviour in adults: a therapist's manual
A twelve-session protocol, session by session, for adults who have active suicidal thoughts or who have just made an attempt. Assessment here is a clinical formulation and not a prediction, because no scale predicts whether a given individual will act; the work targets the suicidal episode directly: the crisis narrative, the safety plan, reasons for living, hopelessness, problem solving, emotion regulation, connection, and a guided exercise revisiting the crisis that prepares for the next one. The acute crisis and hospital admission, professional confidentiality, caring contacts after an attempt, non-suicidal self-injury, those close to the person, documentation, postvention and the suicide of a patient are covered in full, with ten worksheets to hand over and full references.
Cyclothymic disorder: steadying the waves without dimming the person — a therapist's manual
A sixteen-session protocol, over five to seven months, for adults with cyclothymic disorder, in liaison with a psychiatrist or a doctor. First, meeting and assessing, distinguishing cyclothymia from borderline personality disorder, attention deficit and recurrent depression, then understanding this often unrecognised disorder. Next, observing mood day by day, recognising highs and lows, regularising sleep and rhythms, and working on emotional reactivity and sensitivity to rejection. Finally, impulsive decisions, substance use and stimulants, work on well-being, a plan for the days when things run away or drop, and reflection on what the person wants to keep of their temperament. What the psychologist needs to know about the risk of progression to bipolar disorder, antidepressants and mood stabilisers, seven worksheets, and the references of a field in which research is still thin.
Bipolar disorder: psychoeducation and relapse prevention — a therapist's manual
A twelve-session protocol, session by session, alongside the medication treatment of bipolar disorder in adults. It is conducted during a period of stability and it targets relapse, not the current episode. The history plotted as a curve, identification of the early warning signs of elevation and of depression, the written emergency plan, regular rhythms and sleep as a treatment variable, adherence addressed without moralising, the consequences of past episodes, the place of those close to the person, and the life project. What the psychologist needs to know about medication, worksheets to hand over and full references.
Treating depression in children and adolescents: a therapist's manual
A protocol of sixteen sessions, session by session, for major depressive episodes before the age of eighteen. The clinical picture by age band — irritability rather than sadness in children —, assessment in three voices with the young person, the parents and the school, a whole session devoted to suicide risk and the safety plan, and a section on confidentiality with a minor. Then activation adapted to age, emotions, thoughts, the return to school, sleep and screens. Four sessions with the parents, the place of medication stated in full, worksheets to hand over and complete references.
Treating depression in adults: a therapist's manual
A protocol of sixteen sessions, session by session, built on cognitive behavioural therapy for depression and on behavioural activation. Assessment and diagnostic sorting first — including screening for bipolarity and assessment of suicide risk —, then formulation, activation, the obstacles to activation, rumination, work on thoughts, behavioural experiments, problem solving, sleep, relationships, rules and self-criticism. The place of medication stated plainly, detailed conduct of activation, safety planning, relapse prevention, worksheets to hand the patient, and full references.
Children and adolescents whose parent has a mental illness: a therapist's manual
A session-by-session protocol for children and adolescents aged 4 to 17 who have a parent with a mental illness, and for their parents: three assessment sessions in which each person is seen alone, three sessions with the parents, two with the child, a family meeting in which the parents themselves talk about the illness, a written plan for relapses and hospital admissions, the link with the school, a module for the adolescent and a brief format of three meetings. Safety first, without confusing mental illness with danger; age-appropriate psychoeducation that undoes the child's guilt; the parent's treatment as part of prevention, in liaison with their care team. Based on Family Talk, "Let's Talk about Children" and the Compas family intervention, with modest measured effects, stated as they are. Particular situations, worksheets to hand over and full references.
Supporting a person with cancer: a therapist's manual
A ten-session programme for adults with cancer whose distress becomes excessive, lasts or prevents them from living, at any point in the illness, from diagnosis to the end of life. It begins by sorting out expected distress, adjustment disorder, major depression and anxiety disorder, and by looking for what belongs to the doctor. It brings together what has been evaluated in psycho-oncology — problem solving, activation paced to energy, work on worry and fear of recurrence, the principles of meaning-centred therapies and of the CALM approach for advanced disease — and it explicitly assesses suicide risk and the wish to die. Screening, measures, loved ones and children, pointers on end-of-life law to be related to the law of each country, worksheets to hand over and full references.
Adjustment disorder: a therapist's manual
A brief protocol of six to eight sessions for adjustment disorder in adults, as ICD-11 has redefined it: a preoccupation with a stressor and a failure to adapt. The manual begins by deciding whether this really is the disorder in question, and says what moves you on to another diagnosis — major depressive episode, post-traumatic stress disorder, prolonged grief. It reduces the room the preoccupation takes up, solves one by one the problems the blow has produced, gets the days going again, makes room for what does not change and prepares the return to work. Suicide risk, often underestimated in this diagnosis, is assessed at every session; measures, worksheets to hand over and full references.
Burnout (occupational exhaustion): a therapist's manual
A ten-session protocol, session by session, for burnout in adults, based on work-focused cognitive behavioural therapy. First the triage, because burnout is not an illness in the classifications and it often conceals a depressive episode or a suicide risk. Then active recovery, the analysis of work, the rules that exhaust, the stepped return-to-work plan carried out with the GP and the occupational health doctor, and the decision to stay, change or leave. The debate between burnout and depression, measures that are free to use, what the trials really show, worksheets to hand over and full references.
Chronic pain: a therapist's manual
A twelve-session protocol, individual or in a group, for adults who have been living with pain for more than three months — chronic low back pain, fibromyalgia, widespread musculoskeletal pain, chronic headache, persistent post-surgical pain —, delivered in liaison with the doctor or the pain clinic. It draws on cognitive behavioural therapy and on acceptance and commitment therapy: understanding pain, pacing activity, facing feared movements, working on catastrophising, making room for what cannot be controlled, sleeping, preparing for flare-ups. The established effects are small to moderate, and the manual says so. It also covers somatic red flags, suicide risk, the place of medication without any doses, supporting an opioid taper decided by the doctor, and measures, with worksheets to hand over and full references.
Schizoaffective disorder: psychoeducation, relapse prevention and cognitive therapy — a therapist's manual
A sixteen-key-session protocol, over six to nine months, for adults with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar or depressive type, seen as outpatients and in liaison with a psychiatrist. First, meeting the person, assessing danger and situating the disorder, then drawing the life chart on two lines, mood and psychosis, and speaking honestly about a diagnosis that is open to debate. Next, identifying the early signs of elevation, depression and psychosis, and bringing them together in a single three-level prevention plan, before working on rhythms and sleep. Finally, treatment through shared decision-making, psychotic experiences that persist, low mood and the safety plan, substance use and the consequences of episodes, a session with those close to the person, and planning what comes next. What the psychologist needs to know about antipsychotics, lithium and its signs of toxicity, and suicide risk, seven worksheets, and the references of a field that borrows heavily from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Suicidal behaviour and self-harm in adolescents: a therapist's manual
A fourteen-session protocol, session by session, for the adolescent who is hurting themselves or who has made an attempt. First the sorting: self-harm without suicidal intent and suicidal behaviour are not the same thing, and yet one predicts the other. Then safety — a written safety plan, means restriction organised with the parents —, the chain analysis that gives you the target, and work on emotion regulation, relationships and shame. Confidentiality with a minor, criteria for hospitalisation, the place of medication, contagion and social media, worksheets to hand over, and full references.
Other topics
- Addictions10
- ADHD6
- Anxiety34
- Attention & focus9
- Autism4
- Children & parents35
- Eating disorders4
- Emotions24
- Gender identity1
- Grief7
- Loneliness5
- Longevity5
- Mindfulness1
- Neurocognitive disorders3
- OCD7
- Personality disorders12
- Psychosis8
- Relationships14
- Self-esteem7
- Sleep12
- Stress & burnout10
- Studying3
- Tics & Tourette1
- Trauma10
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