What we offer

Cognitive behavioral therapies, or CBT, are a range of talking therapies based on the theory that thoughts, feelings, what we do and how our body feels are all connected. If we change one of these, we can alter the others. When people feel worried or distressed, we often fall into patterns of thinking and responding which can worsen how we feel. CBT works to help us notice and change problematic thinking styles or behavior patterns so we can feel better. CBT has lots of strategies that can help you in the here and now.

— British Association For Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy that encourages the patient to focus briefly on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. EMDR therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD symptoms.

— EMDR International Association

Psychodynamic therapy helps you understand how your current feelings and behaviour are shaped by your past experiences and your unconscious mind and impulses. The relationship with your therapist is key to this therapeutic approach. Having an accepting and trusting relationship with them encourages you to talk freely and openly about topics like your childhood and your relationship with your parents. This can help you understand what you’re feeling now, why you behave in a certain way and how this affects your relationships.

— British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP)

Schema Therapy is an integrative approach that brings together elements of CBT, attachment and object relations theories, and Gestalt and experiential therapies. It aims to change our longstanding, negative patterns or beliefs (schemas) that typically begin early in our life, often when emotional needs are unmet. Schemas can be reinforced by certain behaviours, patterns of thinking and the mind’s coping strategies, known as 'coping styles' or ‘schema modes’. Coping styles are an individual's way of avoiding the painful emotions associated with a schema. Whilst they might have been helpful in childhood, if left untreated, they can become problematic in later life. The goal of schema therapy is to help you break these ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, and replace them with healthier alternatives.

— Psychology Today

MBT is a type of long-term psychotherapy. Mentalisation is the ability to think about thinking. It helps to make sense of our thoughts, beliefs, wishes and feelings and to link these to our actions and behaviours. MBT aims to improve a person’s capacity to mentalise. We focus on what is going on in their mind and in the minds of other people and link this to understand and alleviate problematic behaviours. It’s particularly useful for people who live with from long-term difficulties in relationships and who experience intense emotional distress and overwhelming feelings which may result in destructive behaviours such as self-harm or aggression towards others. It is also helpful for people who may be distrustful of other people and have difficulty in reading other people’s responses to them.

— Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust

IFS is an evidence-based psychotherapy that conceives of every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. It assumes the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. IFS assumes that we all have many ‘parts’ that help us through life and protect us. Sometimes these parts can become extreme because of our experiences in the world and it can then be harder to access the calm confident, compassionate, courageous, creative, clear, curios and connected core Self. These parts can also make us behave in ways that cause conflict, distress or unhappiness in ourselves or those around us.

IFS helps people heal by accessing and healing their protective and wounded inner parts. IFS creates inner and outer connectedness by helping people first access their Self and, from that core, come to understand and heal their parts.

— The IFS Institute

Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) is an evidence-based, culturally inclusive, trauma-focused, short-term psychotherapeutic intervention that was designed for survivors of multiple and complex trauma. Within a life-span approach, it enables the integration of traumatic memories into the biographical context, activates the person's resources, and allows meaning-making and corrective relationship experiences. The focus of NET is on reconstructing the fragmented memories of traumatic experiences into coherent narrations that are connected to the context of the life period. It aims to contextualise specific associative elements of the fear network: the sensory, cognitive, affective, and bodily memories of trauma so as to understand and process the traumatic events in the course of the individual’s life.

— The NET Institute

Despite the similarities names Narrative Therapy is not the same as Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). Instead of focusing on exposure, Narrative therapy takes on a collaborative and non-pathologizing approach which centres people as the experts of their own lives. It views problems as separate from people and assumes people as having many skills, abilities, values, commitments, beliefs and competencies that will assist them to change their relationship with the problems influencing their lives. It is a way of working that considers the broader context of people’s lives particularly in the various dimensions of diversity including class, race, gender, sexual orientation and ability. In narrative therapy, there is an emphasis on the stories that you develop and carry with you through your life. Often by the time a person has come to therapy the stories they have for themselves and their lives have more often than not become completely dominated by problems. Therapists work alongside clients in resisting the effects and influences of problem stories.

— The Dulwich Centre for Narrative Therapy

Integrative therapy is an individualized, holistic approach to therapy that combines ideas and techniques from different therapeutic schools of thought depending on the unique needs of a given client. As such, it is sometimes seen more as a movement within the practice of psychotherapy than a form of therapy in and of itself. In practice, by merging elements of different psychological theories or modifying standard treatments, integrative therapists can often offer a more flexible and inclusive approach to treatment than those who practice singular forms of psychotherapy.

Integrative therapy is sometimes referred to as holistic therapy because it aspires to consider an individual’s mental, physical, and emotional health in a unified way. People who seek to have a voice in the direction of their therapy, and who view the therapeutic relationship as a partnership, may be especially receptive to an integrative approach.

— Psychology Today