Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT)

ACT is a way in which you can learn to live with your negative thoughts, feelings or behaviours without trying to change them. Rather than challenging them like in other types of therapy, ACT can help you understand your values, self-compassion & living in the present moment so you can accept parts of yourself that you may not like but you may also not feel in a position to change. 

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Brief therapy

Brief therapy is a short-term therapy which focuses on finding solutions and making positive changes rather than focusing on the past causes of problems. Your therapist will encourage you to look at what you do well, set goals and work out how to achieve them. This type of therapy can be effective in just three or four sessions.

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Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

CBT aims to help you change the way you think (cognitive) and what you do (behaviour). Rather than looking at past causes, it focuses on current problems and practical solutions to help you feel better now. The way we think about situations affects the way we feel and behave. If we view a situation negatively, we may experience negative emotions and feelings which lead us to behave in an unhelpful way. Your therapist will help you identify and challenge any negative thinking so you can deal with situations better and behave in a more positive way. CBT can be helpful for depression, anxiety, stress, phobias, obsessions, eating disorders and managing long term conditions.

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Exposure Response Prevention (ERP)

ERP is a way of looking at specific phobias or anxieties to help you identify the specific triggers of a target problem and helps you rate them on a scale from 1-10. Working with your therapist you can expose yourself to triggers on that scale and develop your tolerance to that situation. Whilst it doesn't completely remove the negative thoughts around the specific problem, it can help reduce the overwhelming or unhealthy negative emotions you experience towards it. This type of therapy can often be used alongside CBT or REBT.

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Integrative counselling

Integrative counselling looks at the whole person, taking into account your mental, physical and emotional needs. Your therapist will use techniques and tools from different modalities to tailor an individual approach for you. An integrative counsellor aims to build a trusting relationship that helps you develop self-awareness. When you understand the causes of your concerns or triggers for your behaviour, you can confidently set goals and develop new behaviours to improve your satisfaction with life.

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Person-centred therapy

Person or client-centred therapy is based on the view that everyone has the capacity and desire for personal growth and change, given the right conditions. Rather than being seen as the expert and directing the therapy, the counsellor offers complete support, empathy and aligns themselves with your self belief to help you come to terms with any negative feelings and to change and develop in your own way.

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Play therapy

Primarily used with children, this uses play as a communication tool to help them express their feelings and deal with emotional problems. It can be used to diagnose the reasons for difficult behaviour, to allow children to work through their anxieties or as a relearning and desensitisation therapy.

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Psychodynamic psychotherapy

The psychodynamic approach is derived from psychoanalysis, but focuses on immediate problems to try to provide a quicker solution. It stresses the importance of the unconscious mind and past experience in shaping current behaviour. A therapist will aim to build an accepting and trusting relationship, encouraging you to talk about your childhood relationships with your parents and other significant people. Its techniques include talking without too much intervention from the therapist to help tap into your unconscious mind, interpretation and especially transference, where feelings you experienced in previous significant relationships are projected onto the therapist.

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Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)

REBT is a type of cognitive therapy that helps clients identify their irrational beliefs and how this creates unhealthy negative emotions, negative behavioural patterns and negative thought processes. It uses the ABC Model to help clients identify the patterns in their negative thinking so this can be challenged effectively, leading to healthier and more rational thinking, feeling and behaviours. It can be goal orientated in a challenging but not overwhelming way and allows the client to become their own therapist through self-education.

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Solution-focused brief therapy

This therapy promotes positive change rather than dwelling on past problems. Practitioners will encourage you to focus positively on what you do well, set goals and work out how to achieve them. Just three or four sessions may be beneficial.​​