These supplements are not really medications – most are simply fiber products with no added drugs or herbs, and so they can be taken long term on a daily basis without worrying about side effects. They’re just equivalent of adding lots of fruit and bran to your diet, but without having to eat daily apples or worry about bloating from bran.

Do check, though, that supplement you choose is just made up of fiber and nothing more, as you will occasionally find one that has added chemical laxatives or other ingredients that can upset your stomach.

It is important to make sure you find fiber supplement that’s right for you, as IBS sufferers often have very sensitive stomachs. Some people find that psyllium fiber in supplements such as Metamucil can irritate their intestines, so if that happens to you try one of methylcellulose products such as Citrucel, or other types of fiber such as acacia fiber.

Schema therapy has been developed specifically to treat personality disorders but has now been successfully used to treat chronic depression, childhood trauma, criminal offenders, eating disorders, couples work, relapse prevention and substance abuse.

Patients with personality disorders or more chronic conditions have failed to respond fully to traditional cognitive behavioural therapy treatments. Beck, Freeman & associates, (1990).

Mainstream services have largely failed these clients, resulting in them feeling more abandoned, flitting from service to service and therapist to therapist. Clients have difficulty maintaining stable relationships, are impulsive, display inappropriate anger, have recurrent suicidal threats gestures or behaviours. They may also suffer from identity disturbance, chronic feelings of emptiness/ boredom and display efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment or rejection. Nhs staff therefore remain largely unskilled in dealing with this client group and may result in further feelings of rejection and abandonment as staff are only to relieved to have client move on to yet another department or service.

“These clients are treated with minimal compassion and much blame in other therapies”, Young, (2003).

Schema therapy therefore is unusually compassionate and humane, normalizes psychological disorders The approach is sympathetic and respectful with emphasis very much on therapy relationship.

Schema therapy is a combination of aspects of different therapies, including cognitive behavioural, attachment, gestalt, object relations, constructivist and psychoanalytical. It expands on cognitive behavioural therapy by placing greater emphasis on explaining childhood and adolescent origins of psychological problems, emotional techniques, client -therapist relationship and on maladaptive coping styles.

Schema’s

A schema can be described as-