ABOUT ME
Professionally, I have extensive experience working with individual’s mental health and well-being difficulties in primary, secondary and tertiary care as well as third-sector services and G.P Practitioner Health. I am a specialist mental health professional who is registered with the Healthcare Professions Council (HCPC) and an accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist with the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP).
I am experienced in working with clients from minority and marginalised backgrounds and aware of the impact that social and cultural contexts have in shaping people’s experiences of mental health. I combine my clinical work within the NHS and in private practice to offer evidenced based cognitive-behavioural approaches to young people and adults who struggle with their emotional and mental health difficulties.
I describe myself as an ethical and responsible therapist who has a relaxed, warm and pragmatic approach where I am passionate about delivering modern mental health with the clients that I work with. As well as keeping abreast of developments in therapy and attending professional training, I am committed to on-going development as a therapist and receive regular clinical supervision in order to reflect aspects of my practice to work as effectively and safely as possible whilst improving treatment outcomes and client’s well-being.
HOW I WORK
I am currently offering therapy from the ages of 14 and upwards. I use a cognitive model of therapy, often integrating third wave approaches of acceptance and commitment, compassion and mindfulness approaches to treatment. A willingness to improve your mental health is an important first step in therapy. Instead of looking at your past, cognitive behavioural therapy focuses on helping you resolve present symptoms and issues. The initial focus of my therapeutic work is to create a secure space where you can explore the challenges you face and identify ways forward.
I will work with you to look at what is causing you difficulty at this time, how your repeated patterns of behaviour can be identified and new ways of coping considered. The work will involve turning that new understanding into behavioural change in order to manage relapse and to guide you through your journey of recovery.
Where appropriate I may use humour effectively and responsibly within treatment. As well as the health benefits of humour, it can enhance the therapeutic alliance and increase trust between us. I find that this can help you gain perspective and assist with your thought processes by helping you to get unstuck as well as helping you to accept yourself more.
It is important that you feel connected to your therapist and my aim is to support you through your treatment process. I am skilled at adapting my approach to make the process of therapy as easy as possible and for you to become the best version of yourself.
I offer a free initial online or telephone consultation so you can get a feel for what working with me will be like. Your therapy will start with an initial assessment to discuss what you would like to explore during therapy and to identify your goals as well as the space to start making sense of things together. I will work with you in order to agree the frequency of your sessions and monitor your feedback with routine outcome measures as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guidelines in order to track your weekly progress.
WHAT PROBLEMS CAN CBT BE USED TO TREAT
Whether you want to enhance your emotional well-being or tackle your on-going mental health problem, CBT is the only evidenced-based treatment that can facilitate healing and recovery from disorders and issues such as:
Addictions
Anger
Anxiety
Emotional dysregulation
Fears and phobias
Health related difficulties
Mood (depression, bipolar affective disorder)
OCD
Panic
Post traumatic stress
Schizophrenia and psychosis
Self-esteem
Self-harm
Sleep disorders
Stress
Suicide
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you require help with any other problem, please get in touch where I will be able to offer my advice
WHAT TO EXPECT
During your initial (and sometimes second) session you begin to discuss the challenges that you are facing and receive a diagnosis and assessment of the problem. From here, we will create your individual treatment plan which can consist of between 8 and 12 sessions of approximately 50 minutes each
During your therapy sessions, we will:
- Identify your thought processes and behaviours that contribute to and exacerbate your issues
- Work together to understand the difficulties that you are facing
- Explore tools of recovery and treatment for you to use in everyday life
- Implement the skills you need to challenge unhelpful patterns in both thoughts and actions
- Undergo experiments to test negative and damaging beliefs and behaviours
- Help you to understand and manage difficult emotions
- Work together to ensure that you are equipped with the tools you need to prevent relapse which is an integral part of the therapeutic process