Psychological Therapy - Different Models We Offer

An Integrative Therapy approach combines different psychological therapy models and techniques to custom fit you. The Integrative approach is flexible and draws from different frameworks, theories and research. Integrative therapy allows the you to work collaboratively with your Psychologist to create a bespoke treatment plan which draws on evidence-based models to meet your needs. It can also be helpful when working with couples and families who benefit from varied and flexible approaches and techniques.

This is an excellent, longer term (third wave) therapy aimed at helping you to understand underlying, and specifically maladaptive, schemas acquired during your developing years.  It draws on psychodynamic and cognitive behavioural approaches.  Schemas are usually covert and can impact on your sense of self and on your relationships. Anyone can find schema therapy helpful - we have had particularly good feedback from clients who have experienced self-acceptance issues or stigma due to transitioning and clients who have survived adverse childhood experiences, including sexual abuse.  Schema therapy is a particular speciality offered by Bay Psychology. It is based on attachment theory and can also  help you to get a better understanding of your relationships, including patterns that you might find yourself repeating. This includes looking at past relationships which may have led you to develop a certain relationship style that is causing you problems now. It also helps you to understand how early attachment relationships might be impacting on your current ones with partners, family, friends or colleagues. 

CBT is a popular evidence-based approach that can help you to develop insight and skills designed to alleviate your emotional distress or any problematic reactions and coping mechanisms.  We will help you to identify activating (factual) events that you are mediating and interpreting through individual cognitive processes and reacting to accordingly.  The approach can be used in general counselling and will enhance your thinking skills and ability to cope, or can be used as a talking therapy to treat clinical depression, anxiety, addictions, common mental health difficulties or to assist people who have psychotic experiences, such as hearing voices or experiencing unusual beliefs. Bay Psychology may use pre- and post-therapy outcome measures but our experienced approach does not involve the use of weekly mood rating scales.

ACT is a third wave (newer, metacognitive) psychological therapy based on something called ''relational frame theory''.  It tends to focus more on emotional responses and psychological processes than standard CBT.  It normalises, and helps clients to step back and observe, the range of human emotions that can be experienced, including depression, anxiety and fleeting or recurrent suicidal thoughts that are intrusive and distressing but (usually) not acted upon. This approach is often helpful for those who have experienced severe or enduring anxiety, depression or low self esteem. 

DBT is another third wave psychological therapy that was initially used to treat emotional lability, self harming, difficulties in self identity, impulsivity and distress, specifically in the context of ''borderline personality disorder''. It thus remains useful in helping with complex trauma, sexual abuse survival, post-combat recovery and other highly adverse events that have naturally had a significant psychological, physiological and emotional impact.   DBT has since been used more broadly to treat most emotional difficulties & incongruence.  More recently, it has been found to be effective in alcohol and drug dependency and addiction recovery.  Clients can be taught mindfulness techniques as part of an overarching DBT approach or separately, e.g. as a precursor to schema therapy.  The main components of DBT are Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness & Emotional Regulation skills training.

Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) aims to  promote mental and emotional healing by encouraging people in therapy to be compassionate toward themselves as well as other people. Many people do not pay attention to their inner dialogue and may in turn ''self-bully'', which then becomes habitual or automatic negative self talk. CFT theory denotes that threat (self-protection), drive (pleasure seeking/motivation) & contentment (security/self-soothing) systems have evolved in order to facilitate survival. Distress occurs when these are out of balance.  CFT can help you to develop compassionate motivation, empathy, sensitivity and distress tolerance through the use of specific training and guided exercises. It is designed to help you to further develop non-judging and non-condemning attributes and break away from self-destructive habits.  It is particularly useful for those who have been bullied, stigmatised or who struggle with low self-confidence and esteem.

Behaviour Therapy is the common thread in first, second and third wave psychological therapies.  There is a rich body of evidence that it is effective, as a stand alone therapy in some cases e.g. anxiety & panic, phobias and OCD, or as the behavioural activation part of another psychological approach such as CBT or ACT.  Methods include systematic desensitisation & gradual exposure (to fears considered irrational or life limiting), controlled breathing and progressive muscular relaxation.   This can be particularly helpful for clients who tend to procrastinate and struggle to put changes into practice, for compulsive and ritualistic behaviours or for those who struggle to think clearly under stress or during panic attacks.

Trauma-informed care is a collaborative, client-centred approach that incorporates one or more (as a ''package'' of care) psychological approaches designed to treat trauma.  This can include: Psycho-education, such as teaching you about the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), PTSD or CPTSD and key issues such as triggers, delayed reactions and dissociation; DBT; Mindfulness; Schema Therapy; EMDR & Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. TF-CBT is specifically adapted for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and associated conditions. Please be aware that diagnoses of ''Borderline Personality Disorder'' and/or ''Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder'' are frequently associated with complex trauma (CPTSD) and so are often best treated with trauma-informed care approaches.

Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy that encourages you to briefly focus on a trauma memory, while keeping you present and safe through bilateral stimulation - predominantly through eye movements. This helps to prevent you from ''slipping back'' into psychologically re-living unbearable past trauma experiences (i.e. through flashbacks). Bilateral stimulation is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with trauma memories. EMDR is often used for PTSD and is intended to change the way that the aversive memory is stored in the brain, helping you to process this and thus reduce problematic symptoms.