Your therapy experience

Making the most of your therapy experience

Therapy is an opportunity for you to learn more about yourself, and about your interactions with others. You will learn more about your own thinking style, and how it may be contributing to your difficulties. In order for you to gain the most that you can from your therapy experience, you will be expected to spend some time each week reflecting on topics discussed, and putting into practise the new behaviours and thinking styles that we discuss in session. You will not be expected to remember everything discussed in your therapy sessions, which is why it is important to bring a notepad so you can note down some of the most important key points.

Self-Help Exercises or “Mental Gym” Exercises

An important part of CBT involves carrying out self-help exercises or “mental gym” exercises. Imagine that you decide you want to lose weight and get in physical shape. How would you go about it? If you decided to go to the gym once/month, and eat anything you want to during the week, would you expect to get in shape? Probably not. Getting yourself in good physical shape requires self discipline; if we are serious about getting into shape, for most of us that would mean going to the gym or exercising several times a week.

The same principle applies for “mental fitness”. If you want to feel better mentally and emotionally, you will need to practice what you learn in therapy on a daily basis.

Self-Help Exercises can involve any of the following:

• reading self-help material
• keeping a daily record of your negative thoughts and feelings
• keeping a daily record of your activities (to learn more about how your activity level affects your mood)
• practising new behaviours: for example, if you believe that people will not like you if you say “no”, a useful exercise would be to set up an experiment where you can test that out

What to expect from our first meeting

The first appointment will be an assessment session, where you will have an opportunity to tell me about your difficulties. The session will last up to 90 minutes. At assessment, we will develop an in-depth understanding of your difficulties. We will look at your thoughts and beliefs and come to understand how they relate to your behaviours, feelings, and day-to-day functioning. Based on a shared understanding of your problems, we will identify goals that you would like to achieve during therapy so that therapy has a clear focus. CBT is time-limited; typically, it lasts between 5-20 sessions; length of therapy depends on the nature of your problems and on your progress. From this meeting, we will have a good idea as to whether CBT can be of help to you. I will discuss my treatment recommendations with you, and I will let you know how many sessions I think you will need to attend.

What to Expect from a typical session

A typical CBT session involves:

• Setting an agenda-this gives focus and structure to the therapy hour and it ensures we cover the most important topics. Agenda setting involves listing 2-3 topics to discuss in that particular session.
• Providing a brief account of your week, including a review of your mood, and a review of the self-help exercises you will have been set in the previous session.
• Summarising the main learning points to ensure you have understood the content of the session.
• Providing feedback: what you found helpful/unhelpful from the session.
• Taking notes-you are encouraged to bring a pad and pen to each session to note down the main discussion points and the “homework” or self-help exercises you will carry out for the next session.
• Agreeing on a self-help exercise for the following week.