How we can help you

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a form of talking therapy with a strong evidence-base for people experiencing common mental health problems such as low mood and anxiety.

 

IAPT for Long Term Conditions (LTC) service is designed to work with those who have certain LTCs and mild to moderate common mental illnesses, including depression and anxiety disorders.

 

Clients may be offered computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Guided Self Help or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy following an initial assessment.

 

Treatment will be adapted to focus on how LTCs impact on mood and how clients can manage their conditions and mood together going forward.

 

Examples of conditions that we are able to work with might include:

 

 

*MSK/Chronic Pain usually refers to chronic pain (not short term, acute pain) that stems from a Musculoskeletal condition.

 

Please see sections on cCBT, GSH and CBT for more information on these types of therapy.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a talking therapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences.

 

EMDR therapy aims to tap into the minds natural ability to heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma.

 

EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound does not heal and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures, EMDR therapists help clients activate their natural healing processes.

 

 

Please note that the availability of EMDR varies according to our staff in post. The service will think carefully with you about your treatment and only suggest therapies where there is a good clinical rationale for selecting one therapy over another that may be far more available.

Counselling offers you the opportunity to talk through your problems with a trained counsellor in a confidential setting. Counselling is time set aside for you and your counsellor to look at the difficulties which have brought you to counselling. This might include talking about life events (past and present), emotions and thinking about their consequences.

 

• Your sessions with a counsellor will last for 50 minutes.
• The aim of the first session is for you and your counsellor to get to know each other and to decide whether you may benefit from the kind of help that the counsellor can offer.
• You will be asked to describe the difficulties you are experiencing and to talk about how you think the problems may have started. It is helpful for your counsellor to know something of your background in order to put your current difficulties in context.
• Together with your counsellor you will discuss what you hope to achieve in your sessions. At each session you will be asked to complete a short questionnaire which will help monitor your current mood and progress.
• It is usually offered to people who have mild to moderate depression and where depression is the primary problem – it will not be offered to people who have both depression and an anxiety disorder.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a time-limited and structured approach to the treatment of depression. The fundamental clinical task of IPT is to help you to learn to link mood with your relationships with others, and to recognise that by appropriately addressing interpersonal situations you can improve both your relationships and depression. Typically, IPT focuses on one of four areas of difficulty that are having a significant impact on your depression symptoms. These are:

 

 

You and your therapist will work together over the initial sessions to decide which area is going to be most helpful for you to focus on.

 

Please note that the availability of IPT varies according to our staff in post. The service will think carefully with you about your treatment and only suggest therapies where there is a good clinical rationale for selecting one therapy over another that may be far more available.

 

A course of IPT may involve 8-16 sessions. Its overall aims are to reduce the symptoms of depression and to improve the quality of your relationships with others.

Dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) can help people with emotional and relationship problems.

 

Behavioural Couples Therapy (BCT) is an evidence based treatment for depression. It is suitable for couples where low mood or depression is affecting one or both partners and leading to distress within the relationship. Research suggests that this treatment works as well as, and sometimes better than, individual treatment for depression when relational difficulties are the cause of the symptoms, or maintaining them.

 

A couple is defined as two people who are in a stable, committed relationship and living together for at least six months.

 

BCT aims to help depressed individuals in committed relationships learn to cope with their depression as a team with their partner. Additionally, couples are helped to enhance and strengthen their relationship by improving their communication skills.

 

In order to engage with Behavioural Couples Therapy both partners need to be keen to be involved in the treatment and therefore both will need to refer themselves or be referred to IAPT.

Couple Therapy for Depression (CTD) helps people suffering from depression by using the relationship as a resource to help support the individual and their partner. It is an evidence-based therapy that focuses on the relationship in the context of depression.

 

People might benefit from couple therapy for many different reasons. It may be that the relationship has broken down or that there is anxiety that it might. Sustaining a fulfilling and stable relationship is never easy. Pressures from work, money, children, family tensions and ill health can all contribute to creating problems and these problems can lead to depression and other difficulties for one or both partners. Sometimes couples can’t talk to each other, and meeting with a couple therapist can open the way to better communication, which is a key part of improving relationships. Couple therapy aims to help you to achieve: