CBT support in Cumbria with Acorns Therapy - cognitive behaviour therapy in a nutshell

Here at South Lakes therapy and counselling services in Cumbria, I offer a wide range of therapeutic approaches, and that includes CBT, or cognitive behavioural therapy.

CBT is a structured type of therapy, looking directly at helping clients to understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, how those can impact their mental health and wellbeing, and working together to help to challenge, change or overcome these, and through that feel more able to manage future difficulties if needed.

CBT can be adapted to work with a wide range of mental health problems, and works effectively to support children and young people as well as adults.

As a qualified and experienced therapist, I understand that it can be difficult for some people to initially open up in therapy, and to identify their negative thoughts and feelings, or understand what a negative thought is. That is no problem at all, it is not a way we that we generally look at our difficulties, and I am there to guide and help, and here at South Lakes therapy I am there to support you all along your therapy road. I take an empathic and creative approach to help all my clients to feel understood and to better understand their difficulties.

Creative therapy approaches can work well hand in hand with CBT, especially with children, who regularly need that extra support and to use drawing, playing and other activities to build up their trust and then their understanding of how we can work together to help them. When needed, I involve parents and carers in therapy with their children, and look at a range of ways of us helping young people as a supportive whole.

An important part of CBT is to reduce the overwhelm that can be felt when we are struggling with mental health, through empathically separating out the different areas of our difficulties, and building understanding of how these areas impact each other. Then exploring together how we can make changes, and how that will meet our goals.

I always take time to explore with my clients what has brought them to me and deeply understand why they are needing help, and in a sensitive way, help them identify how they want things to be. These therapy goals help bring focus to the therapy sessions and promote positive self esteem as they are reached.

There is a large evidence base in relation to the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety, depression, self esteem, OCD, and trauma. I also have experience of working with children with learning difficulties and autism using an adapted CBT approach.

South Lakes Therapy and Counselling in Cumbria - CBT Cumbria