Anxiety, OCD & Depression
Evidence-based therapy to help break unhelpful cycles and build lasting change.
Anxiety
I work with people who experience all flavours of anxiety, including generalised anxiety / chronic worry, health anxiety, phobias, panic.
There are some well established protocols that can be used very effectively to help people reduce symptoms or overcome their anxiety difficulties. Usually CBT for anxiety involves an element of exposure therapy. EMDR, where appropriate, can also be a useful tool to help people process emotionally charged thoughts/images that maintain their anxiety problem.
Understanding the role of the body systems in anxiety can also be very helpful to normalise experiences, make body sensations less threatening, and make sense of why a stressed out nervous system may bring about anxiety via a “bottom up” process.
OCD
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a CBT intervention for OCD and remains the closest thing to a “gold standard” first-line treatment, as recommended within NICE guidelines.
Alongside ERP, I take a contemporary approach to OCD treatment, and where appropriate may integrate ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) principles, or encourage a focus of increasing tolerance to uncertainty. Cognitive strategies may also be used to support clients in responding differently to obsessive thoughts and compulsive urges.
EMDR may be used where OCD is linked with trauma or threat conditioning. Compassion-focussed approaches can help with shame and self-criticism, which are very common in OCD, particularly where responsibility is a central theme. Parts-informed approaches can also support a more compassionate understanding of the internal experiences that drive fear, doubt, and compulsive urges, helping clients relate differently to these patterns rather than becoming caught in them.
Depression
Low mood can manifest in a range of forms, including persistently feeling down/numb/empty/flat, a lack of motivation, energy, or pleasure, and feelings of hopelessness or self-criticism.
A key part of CBT for depression involves developing a cognitive formulation to understand the patterns that may be maintaining low mood. Behavioural Activation (BA) can be central to lifting mood, energy, and motivation; focusing on gradually rebuilding activity and engagement with things that feel meaningful or fun.
Alongside this, we might pay attention to longer-standing beliefs about yourself, including gaining an understanding of how low self-esteem and self-critical internal narratives have developed over time in relation to your past experiences.
A trauma-informed approach can also be helpful, when there is a history of difficult or traumatic experiences, including use of EMDR to help process disturbing experiences that continue to impact mood and emotional wellbeing.