Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
CBT is based on the concept that your thoughts and feelings as well as physical sensations connect to your actions and behaviours. Negative thinking and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle. CBT aims to help you deal with overwhelming problems by challenging them in a more positive way. Breaking down problems into smaller parts, you are guided into how to change these negative thinking patterns using practical strategies. Unlike some other talking therapies, CBT deals directly with current problems rather than focusing on issues from your past.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT has grown from an area of CBT and focuses on the idea that trying to remove pain and distress only increases it and makes it more traumatic. The alternative to this is acceptance. By making room for these feelings and thoughts rather than constantly fighting them reduces them. ACT incorporates mindfulness into its therapy. It can be helpful if you wish to learn skills to manage your feelings and decide what is important to you. It aids you to address ‘stuck’ destructive cycles and commit to move forward.
Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT)
IEMT is a change model that provides a tool to help people diminish troubling memories and negative emotions. A strength of this tool is the rapid transformation that can be achieved. It can facilitate change when other therapies have not helped, and people feel ‘stuck’. IEMT works especially well on anxiety related issues and those surrounding long term issues such as depression and low self-esteem. It also works with trauma memories by reducing emotional impact from the memory.
Person Centred Counselling
PCC provides a space where you are able to feel safe to voice your thoughts and feelings, however difficult. The understanding and empathy of the therapist is an important part of this therapeutic approach. It requires the therapist to have a very positive regard to support their client and get the client to fulfil their potential. It can mean a slower look back at life from an early age to discover why patterns of behaviour or feelings occur.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness in a general sense can mean having greater awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. However, it’s not just about having greater awareness, it creates a space for greater insight. It means we gain understanding into how our mind uses information, regulates the flow of thoughts in a different way and make different choices. It combines well with other approaches or can be used on its own. It can aid relaxation and ‘de-stressing’.
If you would like to see a more generalised view of what psychologists can do please see this video below.