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Table 4 Content descriptions of the programme by participants

From: Transdiagnostic group cognitive behaviour therapy for anxiety in bipolar disorder—a pilot feasibility and acceptability study

 

Numbera

Helpful/useful

Unhelpful/difficult

Quote

Relaxation techniques

10

8

2

“....it was really good just to feel physically relaxed and then I think the feeling of being – the feeling of my body being physically relaxed transferred a little bit to my mental state, being relaxed as well, like it’s sort of a connection between the – well, not sort of – I know that there’s a connection between our physical state or physical symptoms and our mental states as well.”

Cognitive restructuring

7

7

0

“And I had all of them and I thought, “Oh, I didn’t realise that I had these thoughts on a regular basis all the time.” They played out your thoughts that you had during that week and I was like, “Oh, is that nearly all of them?” and I didn’t realise they were unhelpful thoughts.”

Homework

7

3

4

“I was pretty slack with my homework tasks, to be honest. And I was feeling really guilty and anxious about that …So I did a little bit of it. I didn’t really do any of the relaxation or anything like that. I just found that difficult to find the time, really.”

Assertiveness

4

4

0

“And so, that’s helped me because I always used to say yes to everything even though I don’t want to. So, it’s helped me to be more mindful of what I actually really want rather than just try to please everyone.”

Problem-solving

3

2

1

“...it’s hard to solve a problem sometimes, you know what I mean? It’s all right to be given a set of rules, but it doesn’t work….no, I didn’t find that real helpful”

Behavioural experiments

3

2

1

“….you work your way up to things that would’ve ‘caused me more anxiety in the past and it’s like you get gradually used to it. I thought that was a really good – I found that idea and the stuff around that really, really useful”

Graded exposure

3

2

1

“…but still useful was the related exposure things, although with my particular issue, I find them a little bit hard to sort of work out how it’ll fit in, but I wanna work with it.”

  1. aNumber of participants who mentioned this content in their qualitative interview