What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

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Lived experience voices can improve development, delivery and governance of psychological therapies.

For lived experience to make real difference, it takes meaningful engagement, not one-off consultations.

Clinicians with personal experience of distress, stigma and support have powerful expertise.

Practitioners who want to draw on their own lived experience need good practice guides to do so appropriately.

The value of lived experience in shaping mental health practice has never been clearer.

The voices of those with personal experience of mental health challenges and cognitive behavioural therapy—services users, carers, the public and practitioners—have to be meaningfully heard if they are to improve how psychological therapies are developed, delivered and governed.

Lived experience should not be optional or an afterthought. It has an important role in good practice, strong professional standards and public trust. CBT is at its best when it is informed not only by research evidence and clinical expertise, but also by the real experiences of the people it is designed to support.

Those voices add to the body of knowledge supporting it and can be used to help build the structures, culture and opportunities that place lived experience alongside professional expertise, so clinicians can practice with both........

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