Therapeutic Options

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

A short to medium term therapy of around 8 to 24 sessions, CBT is most commonly used to resolve mild to moderate anxiety and depression. CBT works by helping the individual to recognise how their thoughts, feelings and behaviours are interrelated in order to recognise unhelpful patterns that maintain psychological distress and substitute these for more helpful patterns that reduce distress.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT is a short to medium term therapy. The therapist aims to help the individual to accept what is out of personal control, and commit to action that improves and enriches their life. The aim of ACT is to help people create full and meaningful lives, whilst effectively managing the pain and distress that life might bring.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Derived from psychoanalysis this is usually a medium to long term therapy of 20 sessions plus. It is most commonly used to resolve difficulties that an individual may have experienced for a long time, including difficulties arising from early traumatic experiences, or ongoing or recurrent difficulties with anxiety, depression, or interpersonal relationships. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy works by helping the individual to explore the unconscious feelings that might be influencing their continued distress.

Attachment Theory Therapy

Therapy underpinned by attachment theory is a medium to long term therapy of 26 sessions or more depending on the severity of symptoms. The aim of the therapy is to allow the client to explore their attachment history within the context of the psychological distress that they are experiencing. Using principles of mentalisation, it helps an individual to increasingly become aware of the impact of their experiences upon their psychological functioning and ultimately the impact of their behaviour on others.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)

A medium term therapy of around 16 to 24 sessions, CAT is most commonly used to resolve difficulties with anxiety, depression, disordered eating and relationship difficulties. CAT uses elements of cognitive and psychoanalytic therapies in order to help the individual to recognise patterns of behaviour that recur in their relationships with significant others and with aspects of themselves.

Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR)

This is a short term therapy most commonly used for the resolution of post traumatic symptoms. EMDR works by helping the individual to process a traumatic experience, by imagining the experience, while at the same time remaining aware that they are no longer in danger from the experience. For individuals who have experienced a single traumatic event, such as a car accident, a short course of perhaps four sessions may be enough to resolve the symptoms. For more complex or repeated traumas a longer course of sessions may be required.

Systemic Psychotherapy

This is generally a short to medium term therapy. It is used most commonly to work with couples or families to explore how individuals affect, and are affected by, each other and their relationships. Systemic psychotherapists sometimes practise in pairs or teams to further promote an understanding of different perspectives on the difficulties the couple or family are facing.

Integrative Psychotherapy

This term is used to describe a therapy that draws on elements of more than one therapeutic approach, chosen to suit the individual’s needs.