ONE TO ONE
What do I offer?
One to one: Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT)- either online or in person. Do not hesitate to get touch if you have any questions or would like to book in for a free, no obligation initial appointment to discuss your goals, current difficulties and see if CBT would be helpful to you.
I can help with:
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Social Anxiety/ Phobia
- Generalised Anxiety or ‘worry’
- Specific Phobias, e.g., needles, heights, dogs or something specific to you
- Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Depression and low mood
- Low Self – Esteem (LSE)
- Health Anxiety, also previously called ‘Hypochondria’
- Body Dysmorphia
- Panic
What is Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBT)?
CBT is a psychological treatment that has a large evidence base of being effective in treating and improving the lives of those with a range of mental health difficulties. These difficulties include, but are not limited to, anxiety disorders, such as panic, phobia, health anxiety, worry and social anxiety, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Its foundations focus on the relationship between your thoughts or cognitions, emotions, physical sensations and behaviours and how these can create ‘maintenance cycles’.
Maintenance cycles can keep you in habits and routines both behaviourally and cognitively which might keep a mental health difficulty going. Most of these cycles take place automatically and largely outside of your awareness. CBT is an effective way of identifying these cycles and in turn, bringing them in to your conscious awareness. There is much more to CBT, this is just a rough overview of its foundation.
How many sessions will I have?
Together we will discuss length of your treatment plan and agree together. Typically, sessions run over a course of 10-20 weeks, depending on your therapeutic goals and movement towards them. Some find they need less than 10 sessions. We review how you feel about therapy and movement towards your goal/s every four weeks. This helps to reflect on your achievements, developments, new ‘ways of being’ and discoveries. Therefore, putting a time limit on sessions is difficult as this is unique to each person and how you feel your therapy is going.
You can have weekly or bi-weekly appointments.
Where will sessions be?
This will be agreed between us. I can offer face to face in Cinderford or Chepstow, in addition to online appointments. I offer evening and weekend appointments at present.
On finer weather days, outside appointments are also very effective and provide a grounding and mindful space for sessions. Caution is given to finding a confidential and quiet space. E.g., Mallards Pike, Lydney Harbour and Beechenhurst are perfect locations. This session location is a personal choice and entirely up to you and how you feel about the space.
What can I expect?
CBT is not counselling.
Each person has their own treatment plan following an evidence based protocol and formulation. A formulation outlines how a mental health difficulty started, how is is kept going or maintained and what perpetuates it or makes it worse, as well as other influential factors, be it psychological, physiological, social and/or behavioural factors.
Between sessions there is also homework or out of session work to do. Homework is essential in helping to challenge your thinking and automatic thoughts and beliefs which we can so easily accept. It also provides you with time to reflect on content covered in our sessions and reinforce or embed this further in to your everyday.
CBT is like learning a new skill; you essentially re-learn how to think, feel, behave and respond rather than react to a variety of situations, depending on what your main difficulty is and what your goal/s are.
If you think back to learning to drive a car, riding a bike or another task, it probably took some time to get to grips with it before it all became automatic. This is the same as CBT. You are learning new cognitive skills, but slowly and surely, new ways can replace old ways. It just takes patience, openness and kindness to yourself. Rome was not built in a day. I will be by your side to help you and guide you through. You are not alone.
How do I start?
Please fill out a contact form or send me an email. Briefly state your current difficulties and leave a phone number that you would like me to reach you on.
I will get in touch over phone as soon as possible to arrange a free initial appointment. Initial appointments last around 20-30 minutes. If you would rather not have a phone call, please do mention this in the email and I will reply online via email.
Fees:
One to One £50 per hour
One to One PTSD (1.5 hour sessions) £60- ‘Reliving’ session
N.B: Not all PTSD appointments are 1.5 hours, only some. Therefore, for these shorter sessions, the fee is £50.