Information for patients

English not your first language?

We can provide translation and interpretation support if you need it. Please mention this when you contact us or ask someone else to contact us on your behalf. Alternatively, ask your GP or healthcare professional to refer you to our service and provide details of your needs.

Am I eligible?

Please note if you have been supported by any of the following mental health services within the timeframes stated below, or are still supported by them, please do not continue with this referral. Instead contact that service or your GP. We will require a healthcare professional referral from them to ensure you get the right support to meet your needs.

• Mental Health Crisis Team and/or Emergency department at your local hospital  (within one month)
• Drug and Alcohol Services (within 6 months)
• Community Treatment Team or Community Mental Health Team (within 12 months)
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (within 6 months)

What happens next?

Once we receive a referral from you, your GP or healthcare professional and established that our service is appropriate to meet your needs, we will contact you and arrange a telephone appointment; this is to discuss how we can support you and the type of therapy we recommend. The telephone appointment will take approximately 30 minutes. It is important that you are in a quiet and confidential place where you can talk freely.

We have a full range of options available, such as our online therapy programme, wellbeing courses and groups, self-help (telephone and face to face), one to one and group therapy, and counselling.

In some cases, Talking Therapies might not be the service that could help you. If this is the case, we will help you find other local services that are better suited to your needs.

How will I know therapy is helping me?

We will work with you to monitor if it’s helping you through discussion and a regular short and simple questionnaire. This questionnaire is a tool which will identify the progress you are making within therapy.  This form can be emailed to you to complete at your leisure, or you can do this together with your therapist.

We all get anxious. Anxiety has an important role to play. It prepares our body for ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ from something we perceive as threatening or dangerous to us.  Modern life has its own triggers which can cause anxiety e.g. public speaking, whether or not we have time to do all the things we have to do, or even fear itself. There are lots of different types of anxiety including fears and phobias, panic, obsessions and compulsions, health anxiety, worry and post-traumatic stress.

Being shy is not necessarily a problem. Most people can feel a little shy and nervous in social situations at some point. However, some people struggle with this more than others. You may find that it starts to have an impact on the way you would like to live your life. For example, avoiding situations or cancelling plans, worrying excessively about what other people think of you.

Depression is characterised by feeling sad, hopeless and a loss of interest in things you used to enjoy. People with depression find their symptoms can persist for weeks or months and can interfere with work, social and family life.

Symptoms include:

• Continuous low mood or sadness
• Feeling hopeless and helpless
• Having low self-esteem
• Feeling tearful
• Feeling irritable and intolerant of others
• Having no motivation or interest in things
• Finding it hard to make decisions
• Not getting any enjoyment out of life
• Having suicidal thoughts or feelings of harming yourself
• Disturbed sleep (struggling to get off to or stay asleep, or sleeping too much)
• Changes in weight and/or appetite
• Feeling anxious

Your symptoms may cause you to withdraw from other people including your family and friends. You may also find going to work difficult and stressful and may take time off sick. As a result you may feel worse about yourself and lower in mood or self-esteem.

Going through a traumatic experience can take its toll on the mind as well as the body. You may experience feelings of fear, guilt, anxiety and low mood. It is entirely normal to be affected by something that has been traumatic, particularly if you felt your life, or the life of someone close to you was under threat. Some people experience their memories of the traumatic even as if it were happening again known as flashbacks, and may have nightmares about what happened. For most people these symptoms will gradually reduce over time. However some people will continue to experience flashbacks and nightmares.

• Specific phobias
• Panic disorder
• Agoraphobia
• Health anxiety
• Problems related to childhood trauma
• Bereavement

• Space for resilience – aims to increase resilience and well-being in a safe and confidential space.
• Space from anxiety – helps you to manage anxiety in a safe and confidential space.
• Space from generalised anxiety disorder – aims to increase your resilience and helps you to manage worries in a safe and confidential space.
• Space from health anxiety – you can explore the unhelpful behaviours that are common in health anxiety and learn to identify and manage these behaviours.
• Space from money worries – the course aims to use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to break the vicious cycle between financial difficulties and poor mental health which are known to both be caused by self-critical thoughts of low self-worth.
• Space from social anxiety – will help you to break your fears down so that you can start to face them, and also reduce your anxiety. You will learn about a CBT technique called ‘graded exposure’ which will help you to make a plan to gradually overcome your fears.
• Space from panic – will help you to break your fears down so that you can start to face them, and also reduce your anxiety. You will learn about a CBT technique called ‘graded exposure’ which will help you to make a plan to gradually overcome your fears.

Space for sleep – is designed to relieve the symptoms of sleeping problems such as insomnia by:

• Focusing on developing a good sleep cycle and healthy sleep habits
• Creating a time for bed routine to promote restorative sleep
• Developing a good sleep/wake association with the bedroom and sleeping
• Using evidence based techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation and sleep restriction

• Space from depression – aims to help you to be more motivated and manage your depression in a safe and confidential space.
• Space from obsessive compulsive disorder – introduces youth techniques to help you to face your fears, without engaging in compulsions.
• Space from phobia – will help you to break your fears down so that you can start to face them, and also reduce your anxiety. You will learn about a CBT technique called ‘graded exposure’ which will help you to make a plan to gradually overcome your fears.
• Space from stress – is about using your strengths and resources to deal with stress and find a better balance in your life

• Space from chronic heart disease – is about using your strengths and resources to deal with stress and mental health issues resulting from chronic heart disease and find a better balance in your life
• Space from chronic pain – shows you the basics of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (or CBT) for the management of mental health issues resulting from chronic pain symptoms
• Space from COPD – shows you the basics of CBT for the management of mental health issues resulting from COPD symptoms
• Space for diabetes wellbeing – shows you the basics of CBT for the management of mental health issues resulting from diabetes