Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave.
It's most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression, but can be useful for other mental and physical health problems.
How CBT works
CBT is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle.
CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts.
You're shown how to change these negative patterns to improve the way you feel.
Unlike some other talking treatments, CBT deals with your current problems, rather than focusing on issues from your past.
It looks for practical ways to improve your state of mind on a daily basis.
Uses for CBT
CBT has been shown to be an effective way of treating a number of different mental health conditions.
In addition to depression or anxiety disorders, CBT can also help people with:
bipolar disorder
borderline personality disorder
eating disorders – such as anorexia and bulimia
obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
panic disorder
phobias
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
psychosis
schizophrenia
sleep problems – such as insomnia
problems related to alcohol misuse
CBT is also sometimes used to treat people with long-term health conditions, such as:
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)
fibromyalgia
Although CBT cannot cure the physical symptoms of these conditions, it can help people cope better with their symptoms.
Rewind Therapy (Trauma Therapy)
The rewind technique is a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), phobias, and anxiety. For many years, severe anxiety-based conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder or phobias were considered only treatable through long, painful exposure therapy, and sometimes not at all. The rewind technique is a comfortable and effective treatment that can greatly reduce, and even remove, traumatic or phobic symptoms quickly through relaxation and guided imagery, all without even having to talk about the details of the traumatic incident(s) in question. This technique has originated from NLP and is also known as the visual/kinaesthetic dissociation technique.
The Rewind technique (Trauma Therapy) can help reduce, or in some cases remove, the following PTSD symptoms:
flashbacks
intrusive thoughts or images
nightmares
intense distress at real or symbolic reminders of the trauma
physical sensations such as pain, sweating, nausea, or trembling
Person Centred Therapy (Talking therapy) also known as client-centred counselling, is a humanistic approach that deals with the ways in which individuals perceive themselves consciously, rather than how a counsellor can interpret their unconscious thoughts or ideas.
Created in the 1950s by psychologist Carl Rogers, the person-centred approach ultimately sees human beings as having an innate tendency to develop towards their full potential. However, this ability can become blocked or distorted by certain life experiences, particularly those the experiences which affect our sense of value.
The therapist in this approach works to understand an individual’s experience from their perspective. The therapist must positively value the client as a person in all aspects of their humanity, while aiming to be open and genuine. This is vital in helping the client feel accepted, and better able to understand their own feelings. The approach can help the client to reconnect with their inner values and sense of self-worth, thus enabling them to find their own way to move forward and progress.
Person-centred therapy can be used for a range of mental health problems, such as;
anxiety
bereavement
depression
low self-esteem
relationship problems
stress.
Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis (TA) is a widely recognised form of modern psychology, and one of the most accessible theories of psychology at that. In simple terms, TA is designed to promote personal growth and change. It is considered a fundamental therapy for well-being and for helping individuals to reach their full potential in all aspects of life.
Founded by Eric Berne in the late 1950s, TA therapy is based on the theory that each person has three ego-states: parent, adult and child. These are used along with other key transactional analysis concepts, tools and models to analyse how individuals communicate and to identify what interaction is needed for a better outcome.
Throughout therapy, the TA therapist will work directly on problem-solving behaviours, whilst helping clients to develop day-to-day tools for finding constructive, creative solutions. The ultimate goal is to ensure clients regain absolute autonomy over their lives. Eric Berne defines this autonomy as the recovery of three vital human capacities - spontaneity, awareness and intimacy.
Psychodynamic therapy (also known as psychodynamic counselling) is a therapeutic approach that embraces the work of all analytic therapies. Like psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy, the aim of psychodynamic therapy is to bring the unconscious mind into consciousness - helping individuals to unravel, experience and understand their true, deep-rooted feelings in order to resolve them. It takes the view that our unconscious holds onto painful feelings and memories, which are too difficult for the conscious mind to process.