Welcome

My name is Philomena Lane, I am an Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist, EMDR therapist and Consultative supervisor. I have been working in the field of mental health for over 20 years as a registered mental health nurse and a community mental health nurse, both here in the NHS and abroad. Up until recently for many years I worked as a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist and supervisor in the NHS, before leaving to expand my private practice. I have developed a real passion for helping people overcome the difficulties they face in life in practical and lasting ways. 

What should you expect from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?

CBT is based on the idea that the way we think about difficulties can affect the way we feel and behave. When you interpret a situation negatively then you might experience negative emotions, and those bad feelings might then lead you to think or behave in a certain way.

When you engage with CBT treatment, we will work together to find ways to change how you think about things, improving the way you feel, and therefore positively impacting the way you approach life.

A course of CBT is usually structured in the following way:

Assessment - In the initial session we will discuss the difficulties you are facing and determine together whether CBT is right for you. During this session we will explore what is causing your difficulties and any past experiences that may be influencing the way you feel. We will also agree on a proposed treatment plan.

If we continue with therapy - Firstly, with your consent we may consider informing your GP of any treatment you receive as they have overall responsibility for your care - this will be your decision. We will begin a course of between 5 and 20 regular sessions, each lasting 55 minutes. During these sessions we will start by exploring CBT and confirming that it is right for you, then we will collaborate to set your goals in the short, medium and long term. We will then work together to gain a better understanding of why you are experiencing these difficulties, how your thinking processes may have developed, and how your behaviour can feed back into that.

When we can see that your goals have been achieved our sessions will focus on putting together a plan for your future. This plan will help you continue to make progress with your treatment, and ensure that you do not fall back into the same negative patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour. Once treatment has ended I will again inform your GP.

What can CBT help with?

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care. They recommend CBT as the appropriate treatment for the following issues:

• Child and Adolescent Mental Health

• Pre- and Post-natal Depression and Anxiety

• Social Anxiety

• Generalised Anxiety

• Depression

• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Fears and phobias

• Self-esteem issues

• Health Anxiety

• Trauma/Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Management of chronic pain

How can you tell if a therapist is properly qualified in CBT?

Only qualified CBT therapists who have met the required standards in terms of training and practice can become accredited by the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP). You can visit the BABCP website to search for a therapist by name, or search for accredited therapists in your area.

What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a therapy used to help people recover from distressing events and difficulties that these events have caused - like flashbacks, upsetting thoughts and images, depression and anxiety.

EMDR is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as a treatment for PTSD, and the World Health Organisation (WHO), which also recognises it as an effective treatment for children.

What can EMDR help with?

EMDR is best known for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD); there is also a body of evidence to support its use in treating a variety of mental health problems like depression or anxiety, especially where a difficult life event has occurred.

EMDR can be useful for people who are struggling to recover, having witnessed or experienced an event like a car accident, a violent crime, sexual or emotional abuse, bullying, a social humiliation, or the sudden loss of a loved one.

EMDR is suitable for adults, young people and children. Younger children can find it difficult to fully engage with some types of talking therapies, so EMDR can be an effective, simpler alternative.

How does EMDR work?

When a person is involved in a traumatic event they may feel overwhelmed, and their brain may be unable to fully process what is going on. The memory of the event seems to become stuck so that it remains very intense and vivid. The person can re-experience what they saw, heard and smelled and the full force of the distress they felt whenever the memory comes to mind.

EMDR aims to help the brain get unstuck and reprocess the memory properly so that it is no longer so intense. It also helps to desensitise the person to the emotional impact of the memory, so that they can think about the event without experiencing such strong feelings.

It does this by asking the person to recall the traumatic event while they also move their eyes from side-to-side, hear a sound in each ear alternately, or feel an alternating tap on each hand. These side-to-side sensations seem to effectively stimulate the stuck processing system in the brain, so that it can reprocess the information more like an ordinary memory, thus reducing its intensity.