You might not know what to expect from therapy. You
might not know how to describe how you are
feeling or know the support you need. This might
be the first time looking for support which can
be daunting. Don’t worry. Hopefully below, you
will find some information about what to expect
but if you still have questions or would like to
discuss thing further please feel free to
contact me.
An initial assessment gives us the opportunity to
talk through how you are feeling to help gain a
shared understanding. You are the expert in how
you feel and I can offer knowledge and
experience about how to overcome these
difficulties so we can make sense of things
together. Treatment is a collaborative process,
like riding a tandem bike – working together on
a journey to reach your destination.
Treatment can be for as little as a few weeks to a
few months but always goal focused, working to a
point where you feel you have achieved what you
wanted from treatment and feel able to go
forward on your own, implementing what you have
learnt. Therefore, we start with establishing
treatment goals. Sometimes this can be difficult
and may only involve an overarching goal of
“feeling less anxious” or “less depressed”. We
can revisit goals during treatment to establish
a clearer picture of how you might know whether
you have achieve your goals E.g. feeling less
anxious may equate to spending more time
socially with friends.
CBT treatment involves us working together in session but because the clinic room does not reflect day to day life, it also involves practicing and testing things out between sessions. A bit like homework…but don’t be put off by this! It is not in the sense of getting it “right” or being “marked”. It’s more about making sense of it together, looking at what has gone well, not so well and how we can build on what has been learnt.