Psychotherapist consultation in London

Psychotherapist consultation in London

Psychotherapy helps to change behaviors, thoughts or emotions that cause suffering or lead to problems.

During therapy at city psychology group, a person acquires the skills to control and evaluate his life, learns to calmly respond to stress and difficult situations that arise. There are many types of psychotherapy. In the network of Neuro-Psi clinics, we use only scientifically based methods from a rational approach.

Evidence-based methods (methods with proven effectiveness)  are those psychotherapeutic areas that have shown effectiveness in peer-reviewed scientific experiments. For example, the largest and most authoritative portal for valid medical research, Cochrane, lists 110 studies on CBT, one on psychoanalysis and two on Gestalt.

Rational approach. This is a form of therapy in which the structure and operation of your thoughts, emotions and behavior is explained scientifically and based on modern data from neurophysiology.

After a course of therapy using methods with proven effectiveness, you will be able to identify and eliminate the causes of negative emotions and bodily symptoms. One of the biggest benefits of therapy is that the skills you learn in therapy stay with you. You are your own psychotherapist for the rest of your life.

What methods of psychotherapy do we use?

We use only those protocols that are recognized by world standards and that are used by psychologists around the world:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT, CBT). Helps to identify negative beliefs and behaviors and replace them with more constructive and rational ones.
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). Teaches behavioral skills to help manage stress, manage emotions, and build relationships.
• Acceptance and Responsibility Therapy (ACT). A relatively new type of therapy based on the analysis of beliefs, awareness and change in behavioral strategies. The main goal of therapy is to teach the client to act and make decisions according to their values, even if this leads to difficult thoughts and emotions. 
• Systemic family therapy (SFT). Teaches you how to negotiate and resolve conflicts within a couple, even if people are not officially married. The therapist works with the family as a whole and helps to see negative patterns of behavior, find their roots, work through them through direct or paradoxical methods.
• Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) . Helps to develop active compassion for oneself during the period of experiencing difficulties. Provides skills for understanding complex feelings and tools for working with them, as well as situations that cause them.

When to ask for help

Therapy helps with life’s problems, but in many situations it is difficult to ask for help or even recognize that help is needed. 

Usually people turn to a psychotherapist when they notice that:

• Symptoms interfere with a full life. Problems or symptoms cause significant suffering or disruption in your life. You feel that bodily or emotional symptoms are interfering with a number of important areas of your life, including school, work, and relationships.
• There are more unhealthy adaptation mechanisms in life. For example, you realize that you are trying to cope with the problem of smoking, drinking or overeating. Seeking help can help you find healthier and more rewarding coping strategies.
• Friends and family care about your well-being . If you’re noticing that friends and loved ones are starting to worry about your emotional health, it might be time to see if psychotherapy can improve your mental health.
• Nothing you’ve tried so far has worked . You’ve read self-help books, studied some of the techniques you read about online, or even tried to just ignore the problem, but things seem to stay the same or even get worse.

How does a psychotherapist visit

First session. At the first appointment, the psychotherapist will ask about your situation and collect an anamnesis: when the problem appeared and how it manifests itself, why it interferes. Will ask for details of life (strictly confidential) that may have led to the problem. To assess the level and severity of symptoms, the specialist may ask you to complete questionnaires about physical and emotional health or take a diagnostic test. For example, the Anxiety and Depression Test (HADS) .

At the end of the session, he can give homework – easy, but important. And he will tell you about the vector of work – what he is going to work on and how many sessions it will take.

subsequent sessions. In subsequent sessions, he will work with you on one of the protocols that is most suitable for solving the problem – CBT, ACT, CFT, DBT or another. 

How long does it take to visit a psychotherapist

Usually one session is not enough: to solve the problem, you need a course of therapy. The gold standard is one hour per week. If the symptoms are severe and difficult to tolerate, you can meet more often, just arrange this with a specialist. 

The number and frequency of sessions are affected by:

• specific situation;
• severity and time of onset of symptoms;
• progress;
• stress level;
• impact on daily life;
• support of loved ones.

For example, the standard treatment for panic attacks in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) takes 8-12 sessions. The average duration for the CBT approach is 15-25 sessions (1 session per week). This is usually enough to teach the client to deal with their thoughts and emotions on their own and help themselves. But in some cases, therapy lasts longer. It depends on the severity of the client’s problems: for example, with personality disorders, work can last 1-2 years.

The results of working with a psychotherapist

The American popular science magazine Verywell Mind conducted a study in 2022: ten thousand Americans who underwent psychotherapy were asked questions about the correlation between the cost of therapy and the expected effect. 

The study found that 8 out of 10 people in therapy consider it a good investment, despite the high costs. 

Together with that:

• 84% are satisfied with their progress towards personal mental health goals;
• 78% believe that therapy plays a big role in achieving these goals.

Even a good psychotherapist will not be able to rid you of an unpleasant situation completely, but he will teach skills that will help you solve the problem and feel better. You will learn to deal with negative emotions and fears on your own. 

As a result, working with a therapist will help you improve your mood, change the way you think and feel, resolve internal conflicts, get rid of addictions, and learn how to effectively deal with problems.