Professor Ed Watkins

Professor Edward Watkins is a research clinical psychologist, with an MSc and Chartership in Clinical Psychology (1995) and a PhD (1998), both from the Institute of Psychiatry, London. He currently works as a researcher, teacher, clinical trainer and clinical practitioner within the Mood Disorders Centre, which is a partnership between the University of Exeter and Devon Partnership NHS Trust. He is also the director of the Study of Maladaptive to Adaptive Repetitive Thought (SMART) lab.

From 1995-2003, he worked as a cognitive therapist at the Affective Disorders Unit, Maudsley Hospital, London, a national unit specialising in the treatment of depression, working in in-patient, out-patient and primary care settings. Professor Watkins was a core supervisor on the Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychology Diploma Course in Cognitive Therapy from 1998-2003. He was awarded the British Psychological Society’s May Davidson Award for 2004 for his outstanding contribution to the development of clinical psychology within the first 10 years of his work as a qualified clinical psychologist. He served as an expert member of the NICE Guidelines for Depression in Adults from 2015-2022.

Please contact him about:

• Rumination and worry - their mechanism and treatment
• The treatment and dissemination of rumination-focused CBT
• Research into understanding the active ingredients of CBT and Behavioural Activation
• Improving mental health in young people including university students
• Treatment and prevention of anxiety and depression
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Therapy training material - Behavioural Activation (BA)

See below on guides for delivering BA remotely:

Behavioural Activation (BA) guide for therapists - adapting to COVID-19

This guide is accompanied by a worksheet for explaining the BA model and a supplement to support guided self-help workbooks.

BA worksheet to explain the model

BA supplement to support guided self-help workbooks (SPARK)

Therapy Training material - RFCBT

The latest NICE Guidelines for Treatment of Adult Depression (NG222) recommend that treatment for chronic depression includes CBT that explicitly targets rumination as a maintaining mechanism and that psychological interventions are adapted for relapse prevention to also tackle rumination.

We have now developed training programmes and online courses in rumination-focused CBT - and are now running these courses under the auspices of NHS England for Talking Therapies services in the South-West of the UK. We may extend this training internationally - please send us an email if you are interested.

For more detail on Rumination-focused CBT -please see the treatment manual published by Guilford Press

For details on absorption training, please see the attached self-help guide for patients and the attached script for therapists.

Audio/video presentations:

Please see below a selection of recorded presentations/talks/blogs:

Mind Over Natter talk: How to not worry about worry

Better Thinking interview on rumination

ABCT webinar on Rumination-focused CBT

Talking with Jackie Persons - SSCP Translating Science to Practice - strategies for treating rumination

Self-Help guides for tackling worry and rumination

The following document provides self-help tips and strategies for those seeking guidance on how to reduce worry and rumination:

self-help guide to tackle rumination