Psychosis is a broad term that includes fears that others are going to harm us, hearing voices which distress us, and low mood, amongst many other experiences. This booklet provides information and ideas from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help understand the distress we can feel and what can be done to help. It includes sections on understanding difficulties, immediate coping strategies, managing worry and sleep, improving our mood and planning for the future and provides tried and tested CBT strategies to manage psychosis. We hope this booklet will be a useful guide for those having or who have had experiences described by the term psychosis as well as people close to them.
Rachel Manser is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and CBT supervisor and trainer with OCTC. She is deputy lead on
OCTC’s PGCert in Enhanced CBT (Psychosis and Bipolar). Rachel offers CBT-based psychological therapy to clients in
an NHS Early Intervention in Psychosis Service.
Louise Isham is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow. She leads OCTC’s
PGCert in Enhanced CBT (Psychosis and Bipolar) and works in the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP)
research group, developing effective psychological therapies for distressing psychotic experiences.
