What will therapy be like?

Will therapy be individual or in a group?

Most of our sessions are one-to-one. But you may be offered some information groups to prepare for one-to-one sessions

How many sessions will I get?

It depends on what type of help you’re getting from us.

Most face-to-face, video or telephone therapies take around 6 to 8 sessions. But some treatments may take more sessions, and some may take fewer. Your practitioner will explain how many sessions they think you will need.

We don’t offer ongoing support or long-term therapy. If you still need help after our sessions end, we’ll talk to you about what to do next.

How long will my sessions be?

Face-to-face, video or telephone sessions usually last between 30 – 50 minutes depending on the type of therapy. For some problems, we can also offer supported online therapy that can be done at your own pace, whenever suits you best.

When will my sessions be?

If you are having face-to-face, video or telephone sessions, you will usually have sessions weekly or fortnightly to start with. Appointments are usually between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. But we do offer some earlier and later appointments. At your assessment, we’ll talk to you about what time suits you best.

We also offer online therapy that can be done at your own pace, whenever suits you best.

Where will my sessions be?

Face-to-face appointments are usually held in Carlisle, Penrith, Workington, or Whitehaven. But we also provide sessions in other locations across North Cumbria.

Many of our therapies can be offered via video call and some can be offered over the phone, so you might not need to travel anywhere. Lots of people find this more convenient.

At your assessment, we’ll talk to you about where your therapy could take place. We’ll always do our best to offer what works best for you. Please tell us if:

• you will struggle to travel to an appointment
• you need to be seen in a ground floor room, or have other access needs
• you need your appointment to be at a certain time/day

But, if you are unable to leave the house to get to appointments because of your mental health or physical problems, we recommend that you talk to your GP about what would be best for you. You may need help from a more specialist service. (We can’t do home visits.)

Will I speak to the same practitioner every time?

Yes, usually. We try to make sure you have the same practitioner at every session. If your practitioner feels that a different type of therapy or practitioner might help you more, they will talk to you about this.

What will I do in the sessions?

It depends on what therapy we think will be best for your problem. We offer lots of different types of therapy

Talking therapies aren’t just about ‘having a chat’. They are about making changes to the way you think, and the things you do. We can help you to understand yourself better, and show you how to help yourself.

In general:

• We’ll agree some goals with you, to find out what you would like to be different after therapy. Read more about setting goals for your therapy.
• We’ll agree a plan for each session. This will make sure that you focus on what’s most important to you. We want to help you get the most out of your sessions.
• We will help you find out what works best for you.
• We will ask you some standard questions at every session. We do this to help keep track of your progress. That makes it more likely that therapy will work well.

Read more about the types of help we offer.

What should I do to get the most out of therapy?

Join any preparation sessions we invite you too

If you are waiting for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), we may invite you to some online sessions. These will help you find ways to improve how you feel straight away. They also prepare you to get the most out of CBT. Joining these preparation sessions makes it much more likely that CBT will work well for you.

Set clear, realistic goals

This will make sure you and your practitioner are working towards something that is important to you. You might want to think about your goals before you start your sessions. It can be helpful to set goals that are ‘SMART’. That stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely

Goals like “I want to be happy” or “I want to get a job by the weekend” probably won’t be helpful to you. They are not specific or realistic enough. Goals should give you something really clear to aim for.

Do the work between sessions

You and your practitioner might agree some work to do in between sessions. We do this so you get the most out of your time with us.

Putting the things you have learned in sessions is really important. It will help you to make real changes in your day-to-day life and in the future. We can’t make changes for you. We can only help you learn how to.

If you don’t put things into practice between sessions, your therapy might be less effective. If you’re struggling to do things between sessions, please talk to your practitioner.

Come to your sessions regularly

This is very important. Having long gaps between sessions can make therapy less effective. If you are struggling to come to appointments, please talk to your practitioner. Please see the information about missing appointments.

Be honest with yourself and your practitioner

It’s important to be honest with your practitioner. We want to know when things are going well, and when they are not. We can’t help you through rough patches if we don’t know what’s going on.

And if things we’re doing aren’t working for you, tell us. Then, we can try something different.

Can you prescribe or change my medication?

No, we are not trained to prescribe medicines. You should contact your GP if you have any questions about medication.

What happens if I miss an appointment?

If you can’t make it to an appointment, please call us on 0300 123 9122 to let us know as soon as possible.

For therapy to work, it’s important that you attend regular sessions. If you cancel several appointments, your practitioner will discuss this with you. It might be that it’s not a good time for you to be doing therapy.

If you don’t attend your appointment, and we don’t hear from you, we will write to you to ask you to contact us. If we don’t hear from you in seven days, we will discharge you from the service. We will let your GP know that we have done this.

What should I do if there’s a problem with my therapy?

Sometimes there are problems in therapy that we need to work through. You might:

• Have trouble doing the work between sessions.
• Struggle with coming to your appointments.
• Not be getting on with your practitioner for some reason.

It is important that we work through these problems. We don’t want you to feel that you need to drop out of therapy.

If you feel able to, please talk to your practitioner. If you don’t want to talk to your practitioner about the problem, then you can call us on 0300 123 9122. We can arrange for you to work with a different practitioner.

Is what I say in my therapy private/confidential?

Yes. We work within standard NHS confidentiality guidelines. We will keep notes on your sessions. These are stored securely. We only share relevant information with other health and care professionals involved in your treatment. This includes your GP.

We will only break confidentiality if we believe that there is a risk to you or to someone else, which we need to raise with the appropriate authority.

What happens when my therapy ends?

Near the end of your sessions, your practitioner might focus on how you can keep the good work going in the future. (This is called ‘relapse prevention work’.)

Your practitioner will send you a letter. It will sum up the work you’ve done together. They will send a copy to your GP (and any other professionals involved in your care).

If you still need some help after our sessions end, we’ll talk to you about what to do next. Or we might recommend another service that can help you.

Click here if you’re ready to find out how to get an assessment for therapy from us.