Types of Therapy

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a common treatment for a range of mental health problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness.

CBT helps in understanding what and how we think affects mood and behaviour. CBT relies on working together in a collaborative fashion,  to develop an understanding of the problem and then decide on a treatment strategy. 

CBT helps clients to identify and challenge unhelpful thought and behavioural patterns in their life (e.g., focusing on the negative and ignoring the positive,  or avoiding the things your fear) and to learn  more effective coping strategies (i.e., to relax the mind and body) to help relieve symptoms, improve the level of function and ultimately improve and the quality of life. 

With CBT skills are taught to not only help with the current problems but that can be applied to future problems. If you would like to know more, contact me.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an interactive psychotherapy technique used to relieve psychological stress. It is an effective treatment for trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR therapy is based on the idea that during a traumatic event, emotions become so overwhelming that our mind’s memory system does not process the event in the same way as other, non-traumatic, everyday experiences. This leaves trauma memories stuck, kept separately in the brain and disconnected from existing memory networks. This means that traumatic memories are easily triggered, bringing with them all the emotions, thoughts, and physical feelings that are linked to the trauma. It is thought that by integrating these trauma memories into the broader memory system, the memories become less vivid and emotional, and negative beliefs linked to the trauma can change, helping to resolve PTSD (Schubert & Lee, 2009). Put simply, the aim of EMDR therapy is to store the memories in a helpful way, rather than an unhelpful way that keeps the anxiety going. 

Schemas are broad, pervasive themes like a lens that we see ourselves, the world and relationships with others. Schemas relate to the basic emotional needs of a child, but when these needs are not met in childhood, maladaptive schemas develop that lead to unhealthy coping patterns. 

Some examples of schema beliefs are: “I’m unlovable,” “I’m a failure,” “People don’t care about me,” “I’m not important,” “Something bad is going to happen,” “People will leave me,” “I will never get my needs met,” “I will never be good enough,” etc…

Schema therapy helps clients recognise, and subsequently challenge, long-standing thinking patterns and beliefs and replace unhelpful coping styles and responses, that resulted from the schema, with adaptive and more helpful patterns of behaviour.

Schema therapy is especially helpful in treating chronic depression and anxiety and relationship difficulties. 

Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy is a type of CBT and is an effective treatment for OCD. The exposure component of ERP refers to practicing confronting the thoughts, images, objects, and situations that make you anxious and/or provoke your obsessions. The response prevention part of ERP refers to making a choice not to do a compulsive behaviour once the anxiety or obsessions have been “triggered.” All of this is done under the guidance of a therapist at the beginning — though you will eventually learn to do your own ERP exercises to help manage your symptoms. Over time, the treatment will “retrain your brain” to no longer see the object of the obsession as a threat. 

Metacognitive therapy (MCT), is a psychotherapy that helps people reduce unhelpful thinking styles like rumination and worry, by challenging and changing the relationship with thoughts to bring the “overthinking” under control. Techniques that are used in this therapy include (but are not limited to) Behavioural Experiments, Attentional Training Technique and Detached Mindfulness.  

Mindfulness is about learning to pay attention to the present moment in an accepting and non-judgmental way. It can be helpful in learning to observe and become more aware of your experiences, as well as increasing your attentional control.  

Interpersonal therapy focuses on the interpersonal relationships of the individual. Interpersonal therapy can assist by improving the communication patterns and how people relate to others.