WAYSFORWARD

ABOUT MOOD BOOSTER TRIAL

MoodBooster is designed to provide ongoing support that many people are finding helpful especially in these difficult and challenging times. As a result, people often develop an interest in learning more about the process and how they can improve their results as they start to realise the benefits. Below are answers to the most common questions that are asked.

STARTING THE TRIAL 

WHAT IS WAYSFORWARD MOODBOOSTER

WaysForward MoodBooster is an Online Self-Help program based on the principles and techniques of Solution Focused Brief Therapy.

Unlike many such programs, it is interactive rather than instructional. WaysForward does not tell you to adopt particular strategies. Instead it encourages you to focus on your own individual experience, to identify the particular changes you would like to see in your situation, and to notice and develop those activities you are already doing that could help towards your desired changes.

MoodBooster is an evolution from the earlier WaysForward programs that incorporates the developments made in the practice of Solution Focused Therapy over the past thirty years.

WHAT IS SFBT

Traditional forms of therapy take time to analyse problems, pathology and past events. Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) concentrates instead on helping you:

  • Explore your hopes for the future and the changes you would like to see
  • Develop strategies to help you manage your difficulties and cope with challenges
  • Find quicker resolution of your problems in the present time

MoodBooster is largely about helping you to identify strategies and develop skills to help you towards the best actions to improve your situation, within a framework that has proved helpful to many people.

WHAT CAN SFBT HELP WITH

SFBT can stand alone as a therapeutic intervention, or it can be used alongside other therapy treatment. It is commonly used to help people of all ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds with issues including:

  • Anxiety and depression
  • Bereavement and loss
  • Relationship and family difficulties
  • Alcohol and substance misuse
  • Workplace stress and conflict
  • Making career and life choices

SFBT is not a cure for psychiatric disorders such as clinical depression and schizophrenia, but it often helps improve the quality of life for people who suffer from those conditions.

BENEFITS TO YOU

Mood Booster asks you a series of questions and gives you a chance to explore and reflect on your situation in a calm and structured way, at key points in your day and week.

It allows you to express in writing your thoughts and feelings, and then to process and develop what you have written. A frequent user comment is, “All these thoughts that have been going round and round inside my head, its somehow easier when I see them all written down”.

Mood Booster’s questions are designed to encourage you to notice what you are already doing that is helping your situation and encourage you to think through ways of building on and extending these helpful strategies. As a result, users report finding the program encouraging and a source of hope and motivation for future action.

THE TRIAL DURATION

Unlike traditional forms of therapy that take time to analyze problems and past life events, SFBT (also known as brief therapy) concentrates on finding solutions in the present time and thereby a quicker resolution to your problems.

For some, a week of morning and evening reviews and a single wellbeing review may be enough to bring resolution to their issue. Others tell us they need to use it for a number of weeks or more as they work to resolve longer term issues. And especially in these difficult times, many users find Mood Booster helpful on a ongoing basis, using it as a base for a mental health routine. That’s why the duration of this trial is down to you.

If nothing else, start with a simple issue and run Mood Booster for a while and see how you get on. If you find resolution you can either leave the trial there, or you can choose another issue and start the process over again. If it takes a little longer for things to resolve, then that’s fine, you can use this trial for as long as you need.

MOOD BOOSTER QUESTION & RESPONSE

Question……
WaysForward works by Question and Response

  • It asks you a series of questions, designed to help you think about your situation, in a way intended to be helpful.
  • The questions generally move from what you already know to things you perhaps haven`t thought about before.

…..and Response

  • The responses you type will be stored for the duration of the session and then presented back to you at the end as feedback
  • They are structured in a way likely to develop your thinking and support you taking some actions to improve your situation.

You can write as little or as much as you want into the Response Box, and you can write as quickly or as slowly as you want. please bear in mind … the more you put into the program, the more you are likely to get out of it!

GDPR

GDPR details to go here

IN THE TRIAL

WHAT ARE MOOD BOOSTER REVIEWS

MoodBooster is designed to be as brief and lightweight as possible to fit in with your lifestyle. It works on the principle of inter-related support “Reviews” delivered in brief sessions through your day and week, rather than the typical weekly session, which some people find leaves them with inadequate resources in between meetings.

MoodBooster sessions are designed to complement each other and work together. They are designed to set up a benevolent circle: noticing progress gives the motivation and encouragement towards helpful action that leads to more signs of progress, and so on.

WHAT IS THE MORNING REVIEW

Therapeutic experience has shown that when people become able to imagine their desired changes in concrete detail, they often begin to notice signs of some of these changes happening in their everyday lives.

The Morning Review is designed to help you think about the day ahead in a constructive way and to plan achievable small steps, visualizing your desired actions and thinking about the things that might help.

Some users have told us that they use their email summary much like a diary or to do list, keeping them on track and achieving their small steps though the activities of their day.

WHAT IS THE EVENING REVIEW

Therapeutic experience indicates that when people are attuned to signs of slight progress, they begin to notice them in their daily lives and interactions with others.

The Evening Review helps you identify the better moments from your day and what helped make them happen. It helps you identify the actions that you did that made a difference.

This session is key in recording the evidence of your progress with the summery email proving a valuable reminder in subsequent morning & wellbeing reviews

WHAT IS THE WELLBEING REVIEW

This session is ideally run once a week and is designed to help you review how you are doing overall. It includes an assessment of how things are going, how you are coping, signs of progress and your next steps.

When used in conjunction with your summary emails, this session is ideal for seeing your progress and witnessing the benevolent cycle at work. You can then move on to think about your upcoming days.

Many people report that this session is especially helpful in either realizing that things are good enough for now, or to plan what they would like to achieve in the next few days.

People working on longer-term issues also report that the summary emails from this session form a helpful trail of progress helping them stay on track over the longer term.

LEAVING THE TRIAL 

WHEN THINGS ARE GOOD ENOUGH
SFBT is designed to help you find a quicker solution to your issues in order to minimise the time you spend suffering or struggling. MoodBooster is designed with an open ended model so you are free to stop the sessions whenever you feel that things are good enough – however we usually recommend you complete your trial with a Wellbeing Review to summarise the things that have helped you get to this point and to clarify where you would like to get to going forward.

 

STAYING ON TRACK AFTER THE TRIAL
Some users have told us that they refer to their summary emails to help them remember the things that are helpful and to apply them to the new challenges that may arise over time.

 

YOU CAN ALWAYS COME BACK

MoodBooster is designed as an ongoing resource. You can come back as often as you need. You can start a new trial simply by running the Introduction Review again or simply pick up where you left off with a Wellbeing Review.