In every area of clinical practice of cognitive therapy, psychoeducation is critical. Useful, relevant, and accurate information changes lives. This is especially so in the treatment of insomnia and all sleep difficulties. Seeking relief have most likely become so frustrated with themselves that they’ve overlooked many of the basic rules of sleep.
So we start from the beginning.
We speak about the importance of sleep. We speak about the benefits of sleep. We speak about the conditions that make sleep possible. We speak about ways to create a sleep conducive environment. We speak about sleep supporting life style changes.
As a matter of practice, I generally give my clients some simple literature about sleep hygiene. Sleep Hygiene Tips is a form which I came across sum time ago. It’s clearly and engaging. Most of my clients however suffer from comorbid depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder or post traumatic stress disorder (or all of the above). For them I prepared the Zzzzz Sleep Help sheet.
While psychoeducation alone won’t relieve your clients’ insomnia, it will get them started on redesigning their lives for their own benefit. Furthermore, psychoeducation also acts as a catalyst to get at the deeper issues that might otherwise not be found.