St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School

Positive Approaches to Life

On-line support

“Living Life to the Full

...helping you to help yourself ‘’

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Life skills

Why Life Skills?

Distress, low mood and worry are the major mental health problems of the 21st Century and affect more than one in three of us at some time. Treatments are mainly either with medication or psychological talking therapies.

The Living Life to the Full approach (LLTTF) is one of the world’s most used ways of communicating a widely recommended type of talking therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT has been used for several decades, and research has led to it being one of the most recommended treatments for low mood and anxiety. It is widely recognised as one of the most effective ways of building well being and resilience.

Developed in the UK, the Living Life to the Full course aims to remove much of the jargon from the CBT approach so that it is clearly communicated. By using an accessible language and powerful, clearly communicated change tools, the content aims to help people help themselves.

The approach aims to empower users “to understand why they feel as they do, and to learn new ways of improving how they feel” the course aims to provide ready access to key self-help strategies. The course is supported by a series of CBT self-help workbooks that can be used between the e-learning sessions. They encourage the reader to put what they are learning into practice, and to stop, think and reflect on what is being learned.

The Living Life to the Full course uses this popular self-help format in a CBT model which has a proven effectiveness in helping people develop life skills that help them tackle feelings of low mood, stress and distress.

Some highlights

One of the worlds most used Cognitive behavioural therapy life skills systems.

Translations in over 10 languages.

Award winning websites with over 25 million hits a year.

Strong research base, and evaluation in everyday use in Europe and North America.

Major national roll-outs of the courses have occurred in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

About the author

Dr Chris Williams is Professor of Psychosocial Psychiatry and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is a Past-President of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and a Director of Glasgow Institute of Psychosocial Intervention. He is Patron of the charity Triumph over Phobia and also a Medical adviser and “Agony Uncle” to Anxiety UK.

To access the sessions and books on-line go to

- create an account and use the CODE StAandStB

The Sessions

Understanding your feelings

Find out key information about what makes you tick

Doing things that make you feel better

Plan activities that make you feel happier

Looking at things differently

Learn how to change negative or stressful thinking

Building inner confidence

Walk, talk and act confidently and slowly you'll gain confidence

How to fix almost everything

Break problems down into manageable chunks

The things you do that mess you up

How some things we think help are actually part of the problem

1, 2, 3, Breathe

Sort out your feelings of irritability and anger

10 things you can do to make you feel happier straight away

10 small steps to feeling fitter and happier.