You have been referred to AXA ICAS cCBT.
Beating the Blues™ is a treatment option for all people seen with mild or moderate depression. Please click the 'Take me to Beating the Blues™' button located at the right of the page to enter the programme.
What is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)?
What is “Beating the Blues™”?
Is cCBT confidential?
How long are the sessions?
Can I go over a session again?
What kind of support will I get?
How can I access my sessions?
When people are anxious or depressed they tend to think negative thoughts, avoid stressful situations, and stop doing the things that they enjoy, and this makes them feel even worse. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy teaches people to:
Beating the Blues™ is a computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (cCBT) programme. It is designed to help people suffering with depression and anxiety. It is a self-help programme, and it is easy to use even by those people with no previous computer experience. Suitability for cCBT will be determined by AXA ICAS clinicians. An AXA ICAS counsellor will undertake a full telephone assessment to ensure you receive the most appropriate service for you. Typically, cCBT is for use by adult individuals regardless of age, gender, educational background or level of computer expertise. It can be used in conjunction with medication where appropriate.
You will require access to certain equipment and the internet. For further information see the ‘System Requirements’ sheet attached to this document. You will also need to read and write in English.
In Feb 2006 the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended Beating the Blues™ as a treatment option for all people seen with mild or moderate depression. Beating the Blues™ offers:
To enable AXA ICAS to properly manage your case records containing your sensitive personal information are kept. However, your records are treated as highly confidential and the information contained in them will not be disclosed to anyone outside of AXA ICAS, unless there is a serious risk of harm to yourself or other people, with your written consent, or where we are legally required to do so. Beating the Blues™ does not “time out” when unused for a set period therefore if you are leaving your computer unattended during a session it is advisable to log off. It is important to work in a reasonably private space to maintain confidentiality and also to be able to concentrate fully. Your password is encrypted into the database and it is therefore not possible for anyone to gain access to your password (though the password can be sent to you by email or reset if you forget it). As you work through the sessions, you will get a progress report after completion and a copy will be made available to your Clinical Helper as well.
The therapy is designed to last for eight sessions. Each session takes approx 50-60mins to complete. Sessions are ideally undertaken weekly (or fortnightly if necessary), and there are agreed projects to complete between sessions. You will not derive full benefit of the sessions if you attempt to rush through the programme or leave long gaps between sessions. At each session you will be asked to rate how anxious and depressed you have been during the week, how distressing your problems have been and whether you have had any upsets, disappointments and thoughts of suicide. You will get a progress report on these ratings each week, which you can print off during or after the session. A copy will be made available to an AXA ICAS Clinician or Clinical Helper as well as we will actively review your case.
You may repeat a session or part of a session if you wish. You can do this by clicking on “Review Previous Sessions” when you log on. When reviewing a session, you will be unable to edit any of the data you have previously entered. If you wish to overwrite previously entered information, you’ll require your Clinical Helper to restart you at an earlier point.
You will be called at regular intervals by your Clinical Helper, one of the AXA ICAS counselling team. This will usually happen after you have completed sessions 2, 6, and at the end of the programme. This will be an opportunity to raise any questions you might have about the therapy. If circumstances mean that you need immediate emotional support, our counselling team is available on your free phone number 24 hours a day.
You will receive an activation code by telephone and by email. Visit www.beatingtheblues.co.uk and enter this code. You will then be required to choose a user name and password which you will use to log on in the future. At the beginning and end of the programme you will be asked to complete the CORE questionnaire to help assess your progress. Anonymous data from the CORE questionnaire may also be used to provide an overall evaluation of the service. CORE stands for Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation and is used by counselling and psychological therapy services for service quality monitoring, measurement and benchmarking.
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