Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an evidence based talking therapy used to treat a range of mental health issues. CBT therapists work with people to change their feelings by identifying and adapting thoughts and behaviours that are keeping the unpleasant feelings going.
How can CBT help me?
Traditionally developed to treat depression, over the years CBT has been adapted to treat anxiety disorders such as generalised, health and social anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, psychosis, personality disorders, eating disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and weight management issues.
Tools for life.
CBT can be applied to any situation where we experience an 'emotional shift'. For example, imagine you are walking down the street and your friend is walking towards you. You give a nice cheery 'hello' and a wave but your friend doesn't acknowledge you and walks on by. Now, how would you feel if you thought 'she's ignoring me, I must've done something to upset her'? I would feel anxious and sad, I might ruminate or worry about what I had done wrong and avoid contact with her for fear of what she might say. What if I thought 'She looks distracted, she's probably got something on her mind'? I would feel happier, maybe concerned for my friend, possibly text her and see if she'd like a coffee. So you see, our thoughts and behaviour patterns influence our feelings. CBT helps us to understand and change the way we see things (our filter) for a happier, more fulfilled life.
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a therapy used to help people recover from distressing events and the problems they have caused, like flashbacks, upsetting thoughts or images, depression or anxiety.
How does EMDR work?
When a person is involved in a traumatic event, they may feel overwhelmed and their brain may be unable to fully process what is going on. The memory of the event seems to become “stuck” so that it remains very intense and vivid. The person can re-experience what they saw, heard and smelt and the full force of the distress they felt whenever the memory comes to mind.
EMDR aims to help the brain “unstick” and reprocess the memory properly so that it is no longer so intense. It also helps to desensitise the person to the emotional impact of the memory, so that they can think about the event without experiencing such strong feelings.
It does this by asking the person to recall the traumatic event while they also move their eyes from side-to-side, hear a sound in each ear alternately, or feel a tap on each hand alternately. These side-to-side sensations seem to effectively stimulate the “stuck” processing system in the brain so that it can reprocess the information more like an ordinary memory, reducing its intensity.
Professional Memberships
