Psychological training improves mental health and job-finding among unemployed people

The negative psychological effects of unemployment are well documented: low ered self-esteem and confidence, social isolation, anxiety, depression, red uced life satisfaction, hopelessness about the future, Further, it has been established that these effects often prevent reemployment. The need for in terventions to help unemployed people to minimise such psychological effect s is clearly warranted, yet little psychological assistance is usually give n. This paper describes a psychological intervention based on cognitive behavi oural therapy (CBT), the principles of which have been successfully applied through individual psychotherapy to several psychiatric disorders. We adap ted these principles to create a group-training programme for a non-psychia tric group - long term (>12 months) unemployed. The results demonstrated that significantly more of the CBT group than the control group improved on measures of mental health, as well as on success in job-finding: four months after the completion of training 34% of the CBT group c.f. 12% of the control group had found full-time work. Taking part- time and temporary work into account, these figures increased to 49% (CBT g roup) and 28% (control group), indicating the value of psychological interv entions in reducing the negative psychological effects of unemployment, and helping the unemployed find jobs.