Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?
Do you wake up feeling unrested?
Do you fall asleep on the sofa but wake up when you get into bed?
Do you have trouble switching your mind off at night time?
Is your sleep having a negative impact on your daytime functioning?

Insomnia affects a large proportion of the population and is among the most common complaints in medical practice. Some may experience occasional episodes of poor sleep while for others is might be recurrent or chronic insomnia.

Insomnia is characterised as dissatisfaction with sleep duration or quality, and difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep, along with substantial distress and impairments of daytime functioning. Insomnia can present as the primary complaint or it may co-occur with other medical or psychiatric disorders, such as pain and depression.

Research shows those who report chronic insomnia also report greater adverse long term health outcomes, including diminished quality of life and physical and psychological morbidity.

Changes in classification and diagnosis have instigated a move from a purely symptom-based conceptualization to the recognition of insomnia as a disorder in its own right. These changes have been paralleled by key advances in therapy, with generic pharmacological and psychological interventions being increasingly replaced by approaches that have sleep-specific and insomnia specific therapeutic targets.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is an evidence-based method for treating insomnia without sleeping pills. It has been shown to effectively reduce the time it takes to fall asleep and the time spent awake after sleep onset, and produce a modest increase in total sleep time. These outcomes correlate with improvements in daytime functioning.

CBT-I aims to address disruptive sleep habits, as well as misconceptions about sleep and insomnia that can perpetuate sleep difficulties.

Overview of 6-week program:
o Sleep education
o Sleep Hygiene
o Sleep Restriction
o Relaxation
o Stimulus control
o Cognitive challenging

CBT-I can be delivered individually or in groups. You will be asked to complete questionnaires at the beginning and end of the program. You will also be asked to maintain a daily diary.

Change can be challenging, however if sleep is interfering with your life, you could be ready to make the changes necessary.

Dr Beverley David trained as a Clinical Psychologist in the UK and is currently completing the necessary supervised practice to become autonomous in Ontario Canada. She completed her Clinical Psychology Doctorate training at The University of Birmingham where she developed further her interest in Clinical Health Psychology. Most recently Beverley was employed by Birmingham Children’s Hospital UK where she worked to support patients, families and the systems around them, drawing on Systemic, CBT, REBT, CAT, ACT, CFT, brief psychodynamic and Attachment approaches in tailoring her treatment.

Beverley cut her teeth in Psychology at Loughborough University. Her final thesis explored ‘The relationship between neuropsychological performance and delta EEG sleep recordings, with a prefrontal cortex focus’. This was followed with an MSc. in Health Psychology at Nottingham University culminating in her research exploring the patient and health professional’s experience of cancer.

A return to Loughborough saw Beverley complete her first PhD in Sleep Research, following 86 participants for 365 days, and exploring the temporal stability of insomnia to inform psychological therapy. During her PhD Beverley developed the Occupational Impact of Sleep Questionnaire (OISQ), while post-doctoral research involved securing a £2 million research grant to design and facilitate a Randomized Controlled Trial of self-help treatment for insomnia symptoms associated with chronic conditions in older adults. Beverley lectured at Loughborough for two years before commencing her Clinical Psychology Doctorate training in 2007. Beverley has published and presented her research internationally and nationally, co-authored six self-help booklets on insomnia, and developed and delivered a CBT-I curriculum for health and non-health professionals, and patient groups. Beverley was proud to receive the British Young Sleep Researcher of the year in 2007 and be elected to the British Sleep Society Executive Committee.

Beverley has maintained an interest in Sleep Research with her most recent systematic review looking at Sleep Hygiene intervention within the hospital environment, and the role of Rumination in the development and maintenance of insomnia.