Two of the most exciting things about CBT therapy:

• You can see and measure the changes in your life
• You learn to become your own self-help therapist

Can you relate to any of the following?

• Are you anxious or depressed?
• Are you finding it hard to cope with normal everyday activities?
• Are you feeling overwhelmed by life events and feeling trapped?
• Does it seem there is no way out?
• Are you at a crossroads in your life and need help with the next steps?
• Do you need to be truly heard and valued?
• Would you like to learn how to become your own therapist?

If you can answer yes to any of the above then CBT may be able to help you?

CBT is based on the cognitive model (shown in the diagram below). Cognitive means ("thought processes" as well as "knowledge" or "perception") and CBT is one of today's most successful forms of psychotherapy. It works on the basis of examining how your mood and feelings are influenced by your thoughts and behaviour.

• Although we might think of the above as totally separate entities, a change in one will have an effect on the others; this can be helpful or unhelpful.
• It is almost impossible to change your mood/emotions but what you do have control over is your thinking and behaviour.
• CBT teaches you which behaviour and thoughts have the best effect on your mood.
• The aim is to help you understand what you do, to maintain your emotions, so you can make changes should you want to.

Experience has shown that the majority of clients find between six and twelve weekly sessions will bring about really beneficial changes, but if you need more or would like to gain a greater understanding and a deeper awareness into your issues we can negotiate this at the time and we can continue.

The most helpful things about EMDR Therapy are:

What happens when you are traumatised?

Most of the time your body routinely manages new information and experiences without you being aware of it.  However when something out of the ordinary occurs and you are traumatised by an overwhelming event (e.g. a car accident) or being repeatedly subjected to distress (e.g. childhood neglect), your natural coping mechanism can become overloaded.  This overloading can result in disturbing expereinces remaining frozen in your brain or being "unprocessed".  Such unprocessed memories and feelings are stored in the limbic system of your brain in a "raw" and emotional form, rather than in a verbal story mode.  This limbic system maintains tramatic memories in an isolated memory network that is assocated with emotions and physical sensations, and which are disconnected from the brain's cortex where we use langauage to store memories.  The limbic system's traumatic memories can be continually be triggered when you experience events similar to the difficult experiences you have been through.  Often the memory itself is long forgotten, but the painful feelings such as anxiety, panic, anger or despair are continually triggered in the present.  Your ability to live in the present and learn from new experiences can therefore become inhibited.  EMDR helps create the connections between your brain's memory networks, enabling your brain to prcess the traumatic memory in a very natural way.