What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)?

CBT is a highly effective psychological treatment that can help with a wide range of emotional/psychological difficulties including anxiety and depression. Numerous studies have indicated that CBT is as effective as medication for depression, anxiety, obsessions and other fears. The therapy is based on the premise that thoughts cause us to act in certain ways and affect the way we feel. By adopting a rational way of thinking we can overcome our emotional and behavioural problems. The educational and collaborative aspects of CBT aims to help the individual to become their own therapists.

 

What does therapy involve?

Your first session will focus on gathering more information about your difficulties. This will include filling out self-report forms that assess a range of problems such as depression, anxiety, anger, fears, physical complaints, social, work and relationship difficulties. You will be asked to think about what you hope to achieve from therapy namely your goals.

CBT generally includes:

  1. Structured sessions which means collaboratively agreeing upon an agenda or plan to work towards.
  2. Keeping a written record/diary of your thoughts, emotions (feelings) and behaviour.
  3. Planning of rewarding activities.
  4. Behavioural experiments.
  5. Self-help homework for gathering more information about your difficulties in detail, practicing what you ha
  6. what you have learned in therapy or acting in a new way different to your usual manner of responding to a situation.
  7. Provision of relevant written material throughout the course of therapy.
  8. An evaluation of therapy using various measures and review of therapy goals. Your feedback is useful in order to establish if the therapy is working for you.

     

    Problems I can help with
    Generalised Anxiety Disorder

    Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

    Panic Disorder
    Phobias e.g. Vomit phobia, fear of flying
    Post-Traumatic stress Disorder
    Body Dysmorphia
    Social Anxiety
    Work performance Anxiety
    Depression
    Self-esteem issues

      Assertive skills training
      Work-related stress
      Sleep difficulties
      Anger management
      Relationship difficulties
      Emotional difficulties following brain injury
      Functional Disorder

      Health Anxiety

 

 

What is Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) ?

EMDR can help with a wide range of mental health conditions such as PTSD, phobias, anxiety, depression and traumatic memories.  This therapy posits that when something traumatic happens it appears to get locked in our nervous system with the original sounds, thoughts, feelings and the picture. Since the experience is locked it continues to be triggered when a reminder appears.  The eye movement procedure used in EMDR  unlocks the nervous system and allows the individual to process the experience. This stops the individual getting triggered by the memories of the traumatic events and consequently reduces the mental distress.