Individual therapies

Our Psychology and Psychotherapy Service offers a number of individual therapies.

Therapy sessions are individual to you and many different factors influence what they are like. They last for about 50 to 60 minutes each and are at a set time and on a set day agreed by you and your therapist.

Cognitive Analytic Therapy

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) is a time limited, collaborative psychotherapy which combines cognitive behavioural techniques with identification of problematic roles, relationships and patterns in your life. CAT draws on background history, current relationships and your relationship with your therapist. This can help you to understand your experiences and to move forward in your life. Your difficulties are mapped out on a diagram and this is used, in conjunction with therapeutic letters, to help you understand, recognise and then change your problematic patterns and roles.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a way of treating problems by helping to change patterns of thinking and behaviour that may have become unhelpful. It is based on the fact that how you think and behave affects your emotions, and vice versa. CBT is a collaborative approach with clear goals that are agreed with you, and reviewed regularly. CBT aims to provide a set of tools that you can apply during and after the course of treatment. In effect, you learn how to be your own therapist.

CBT usually works in the here and now.  However, psychological problems and emotional difficulties can arise at any stage of life, and therapy may require an understanding of the previous experiences that have shaped the way you think, feel and behave.  A period of assessment will include talking about all aspects of your life.

Further information about CBT can be found on the website of the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies.

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing

This is a process to help people who have experienced difficulties after a traumatic event such as road traffic accidents, violence, sexual abuse and childhood neglect.

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) involves making side-to-side eye movements or tapping with your hand while you are recalling the traumatic experience. This helps your brain process flashbacks and helps you come to terms with the traumatic event.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy involves a therapist listening to your experiences and exploring connections between present feelings, actions with experiences from the past. It aims to help you understand more about yourself and your relationships.

Talking and identifying relationship difficulties in your life, and how your problems are affecting you now, may help you find ways to deal with them in the present.

The UK Council for Psychotherapy website has further information.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

This is a type of therapy based on a way of learning from the experience of therapy. When underlying worries are experienced and understood, then these may trouble you less. You may not always be aware of the cause of what is troubling you, as a large part of our mind is out of consciousness, but which influences our way of relating to ourselves and others. Childhood experiences and our early years are particularly important in this.

Further information can be found on the Institute of Psychoanalysis website and the British Psychoanalytic Council website.