Therapy

O1

Initial
consultation

Prior to any paid sessions I offer a free 15 minute online video consultation to discuss your difficulties and explore how CBT might be able to help you introduce positive changes to your life.

Currently Unavailable

O2

Remote
therapy

50 minute session using Microsoft Teams.
I use evidence-based treatments to help you identify and target your problematic thoughts and behaviours.
Regular sessions are encouraged in order to maintain therapeutic flow.

Currently Unavailable

What difficulties can CBT help with?

I am qualified to help people who are struggling with common mental health problems that typically present in primary care. I have therefore had many years of experience supporting people who suffer with depression, GAD, panic disorder, health anxiety, OCD, social phobia and PTSD.

Please do not be concerned if at the stage of seeking therapy you are unsure what your main difficulties are or you have not been given a diagnosis in which to label your current experiences. If you recognise that you are being bothered by how you are feeling emotionally and can possibly identify how unhelpful thinking or behaving may be featuring in your difficulties, then do not hesitate to get in touch and we can spend some time conceptualising your problems together.

I have always worked within adult services and therefore am willing to work with individuals aged 16+ years.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What happens after I contact you?

Once you have made contact with me I will endeavour to email you back within 24 hours. Within this email I will be able to let you know what my current availability looks like and invite you to attend a 15 minute initial free triage consultation where we can meet face to face online and discuss your difficulties in a bit more detail and consider how CBT will be able to help you.

If it feels as though CBT will be a good fit then you will have the opportunity to book in a therapy appointment. If however it does not feel as though your presenting difficulties will be best addressed by CBT or your expectations of therapy does not fit with what I offer, then I will have this discussion with you and possibly share other ideas if I feel best placed to do this.

What does therapy involve? / What can I expect?

At the start of therapy we will look to complete a full assessment of your current difficulties to identify what the main symptoms are that are bothering you, how this is impacting your life and what you currently have in place to help you cope. We will also aim to capture a brief history of your problems and identify experiences that may have contributed to shaping what difficulties you face now. Beyond the assessment we will aim to explore what goals you have in place for therapy capturing these both on short term and long term scales.

Once the assessment and goal phase is complete we will then aim to formulate your current problems using evidence based models underpinned in CBT so that we have a good understanding of what is maintaining your current problems and specifically what behaviours and cognitions we need to target to help to make positive changes. This shared formulation is something we build on and tweak through therapy as we gather more information and continue to learn about your problems.

Once we have a good shared understanding of the problem we will then use the therapy sessions to begin looking at specific techniques that I will aim to teach you to help you to begin moving away from what is keeping the problems going and take you in the direction of your goals. Typically these techniques require you to observe/monitor/make changes and gather feedback whether that is focusing on your thoughts or your behaviours. This is all set up so that outside of our treatment sessions you have a clear idea of what work you are focusing on and what you are expected to bring back and report on in the next session. As a result each treatment session has time built in at the start to review homework and time built in at the end to set new homework.

This is what a typical outline of a treatment session looks like:

• Set agenda

• Review week in respect to current difficulties

• Review mood

• Target a specific intervention

• Set up homework

• Summary/main learning points
  

I will always email you after a treatment session to summarise main learning points and provide worksheets/reading for homework practice.

During each treatment session I will expect you to have pen and paper so that you can write down main learning points and summaries as they come up. This helps to foster the collaborative style of working.

How many sessions will I need?

It is very difficult to predict how many sessions you will need however CBT is a short term therapy and on average I work with people between 8-16 sessions. We have the ability to contract on a session by session basis and review progress weekly or alternatively we can contract a bulk of sessions in one go if you would prefer. Typically sessions are weekly or fortnightly to begin with to create the momentum needed for our of session work to be effective, however as individuals move into the maintenance of progress stage of therapy, sessions can be further spread apart if desired.

Will I be expected to do anything outside of / in between our sessions?

Out of session homework tasks will be set towards the end of each therapy session. This helps to socialise you to CBT and have time to practice the techniques that are explored so that you can become skilled in managing your mental health and more able to navigate obstacles that come up more effectively.

In an ideal world you would be dedicating 1 hour every day to your CBT practice. This equates to 7 out of 168 hours a week – not a huge ask really. Just like any skill you pick e.g. learning a new language or learning to play a new instrument, you can't expect yourself to be any good at it if you only attend the lessons once a week and do not engage in any practice. It is the practice that produces the results.

Are you a confidential service? / What is your privacy policy?

The work that we undertake together remains confidential. I uphold the ethics set out by the BABCP (the professional body for CBT). The notes I write on my computer are kept securely via password protected channels and securely disposed of once our contact together has ended. I have a secure email address dedicated purely to my private practice that is not accessed by anyone else. I do not record our teams appointments unless you provide consent to do this, and this is for sharing purposes with you only.

I receive supervision monthly with an accredited CBT therapist and supervisor to help support my clinical practice however information shared is always anonymised so that you can't be identified.

The only time when I would consider breaking confidentiality and sharing information is if you shared anything with me that put your safety at risk or the safety of other people at risk. If this was the case I would naturally have conversations with you first to share my plan of contact however typically I would be looking to liaise with a GP or with a primary care liaison team/crisis management team.

Where do sessions take place?

Sessions take place remotely using Microsoft teams. I expect that you will be working from somewhere that you can speak privately/confidentially and without interruptions. Equally I will be doing the same, operating from a space that is private and confidential.

How long are sessions?

Sessions typically last 50 minutes.

How much are sessions and how do I pay for them?

Sessions cost £65. Please pay for them in advance via bank transfer.

What is your cancellation policy? / What if I need to rearrange or cancel a session?

Although I expect you to prioritise your treatment sessions and show commitment to putting your mental health first, I of course understand that at times we have to cancel our treatment sessions. If this is the case I ask if you can give me 12+ hours notice so that I can rearrange my time accordingly.

If you are unable to provide at least 12 hours notice of cancellation, you will be required to pay in full for the session. Similarly if you do not attend without any advance notice given, I will not be able to refund your session. If for any reason I have to cancel a session that we have planned, I will give you as much notice as I possibly can and work with you to rearrange at a convenient time as soon as possible.