CBT has been found to successfully help many people with a wide range of mental health difficulties and is commonly recommended by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence. It is a time-limited, present-focused and goal oriented therapy. It is collaborative and skill focused.

CBT is based on the premise that difficulties do not necessarily arise from life events but our interpretations and perceptions of these which are informed by past experiences. These perceptions in turn influence the way we feel, our physical well-being and ultimately our behaviours.

Using CBT our aim will be to reach a shared understanding of the problem(s) and set measurable goals. We will work on identifying and breaking 'vicious cycles' and experiment with healthy alternatives.

ACT is a present focused therapy that aims to increase psychological flexibility. ACT incorporates a mindfulness based approach that enables us to see thoughts as thoughts and not facts. Using this approach we can become less entangled in and controlled by our unhelpful thinking patterns.

As we disentangle from the thoughts that keep us stuck, we also focus on the things that truly matter and the direction we would like to move in with our lives. By identifying our values in different areas of life we then make steps towards living in a value driven way.

ACT also helps us to be more present in our lives. By being more present, we also learn how to be more accepting of difficult thoughts, feelings and experiences. This is based on the understanding that suppression and struggle only serve to increase our distress. ACT uses a variety of tools and metaphors to help us with this journey.

CFT is based on an evolutionary understanding of the brain and the mind and is particularly helpful for working with shame, self-criticism, and traumatic experiences that are often associated with many mental health difficulties.

CFT understands that we arrive here without our choosing and with tricky brains that have evolved over many thousands of years. We understand how emotions have key evolutionary functions to keep us safe and how these are further shaped by our life experiences.

Through CFT we develop a shared understanding of the difficulties in the present and their understandable and functional connections with your life journey. We work with a sense of shared humanity; that suffering is a part of life. We work on bringing in kindness, warmth, sensitivity to emotions, and moving towards a healthy relationship with yourself and others/ the world around you.

We offer two main evidence based approaches to treating trauma; both single event traumas (such as a road traffic accident), as well as complex trauma (such as attachment and childhood trauma). These therapies are Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) and CBT for trauma.

EMDR involves an assessment and preparatory stage, where we will work on building coping strategies and resilience. We will then work on processing specific memories, the meaning of these, and felt sense in the body, We do this by holding the memories in mind while using bilateral stimulation of the brain either through eye movements or other methods such as sounds or taps. The process continues across several sessions until the distress is reduced. We then work on using this new learning for living a fulfilled life in the present and future.

CBT for trauma similarly begins with understanding trauma and developing coping strategies. Within this therapy we also process traumatic memories but with the use of guided imagery to give the memories a story and an ending, and to update the meaning of the memories. The aim is to allow the memories to be 'filed away' with other memories, rather than experiencing them as intrusive and distressing.

Some clients come to therapy with less of a specific problem and goal in mind and may rather wish to explore areas of their lives which may be causing distress or dissatisfaction. Some clients may have found that structured time-limited therapies have not been helpful or sufficient to fully address the issues they are facing. Other clients may need longer to develop a trusting working relationship in therapy. In this case, we may recommend a longer term approach in which we can more fully explore and understand what may be going on in order to gain further insight into helpful ways forward.

Longer term therapies can be an integration of approaches described above that are tailored to the individual, or may be psycho-dynamically oriented.

Integrative Therapy is when several distinct models of counselling and psychotherapy are used together. It is a collaborative approach to therapy which sees a person as a whole. It examines each client’s issues from a holistic perspective and considers the different components that combine to make up psychological wellbeing. The main step in integrative therapy is that an individual is unique and what works for one does not necessary work for another. This allows the counsellor to tailor the approach for the individual clients.

Person Centred: takes a humanist approach that looks at how an individual perceive themselves consciously and focusses on an individual’s self-worth without feeling judged, respecting they values and help the individual to accept who they are. The Person-Centred approach facilitates personal growth and relationships while allowing them to explore and utilise their own strengths and identity. This approach emphasises the importance of being true to yourself and your inner feelings in order to lead the best life possible. These issues can have a huge impact on self- reliance, self-worth, self-esteem and self-awareness.