High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Long Term Conditions

Black and white photograph of a person laid in bed covering their face.

“ NHS Somerset Talking Therapies” offers evidence base therapy called cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).

This therapy is delivered by fully trained professionals which can be offered at at varying levels (low intensity and high intensity forms) depending on your needs. CBT explores the ways in which we think, and behave and how this affects how we feel.

We offer a range of platforms in which we can deliver this therapy to you to best suit your needs such as: face to face appointments in local clinic venues, telephone appointments, virtual video appointments, and as psychological educational courses. We are also able to offer counselling support should this be deemed more suitable. Counselling is a talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you and helping you find ways to deal with emotional issues.

High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Long Term Conditions (HI CBT LTC) has been developed to help patients whose mental health problems like depression and anxiety are closely linked to ongoing long term physical health problems. HI CBT therapists have been trained in nationally approved LTC training that was designed to improve understanding and improve CBT delivery to people with diabetes, COPD, medically unexplained problems, non-epileptic seizures, chronic pain, and Fibromyalgia/CFS.

HI CBT LTC is an evidence-based therapy approach that is focused on helping patients better understand the links between their physical and mental health. This approach helps patients to identify obstacles for progress and work on developing skills to overcome these and exploring possibilities for change and growth alongside living with long term conditions. Psycho-education about their mental and physical health problems can help to understand what we have learned in recent years about managing long terms conditions and also can install hope in patients that change is possible.

There is emphasis in HI CBT LTC on allowing patients to work at their own pace and our patient centred approached ensures that patient’s experiences and feeling are validated and explored before moving on to skill-based work. As with traditional CBT, part of this therapy is centred around testing our own thoughts and beliefs in order to make sure that we are not falling into thinking traps that can get in the way of our progress in managing mental and physical health. Alongside this cognitive change, we also work on enabling patients to explore their capacity of behavioural changes to help them check what is really possible, find their pace and set new goals for moving forward in the spirit of living well with long term conditions.

Many patients find HI CBT LTC helpful in giving them space to explore their experiences and they often report that this therapy did help them to struggle less with depression and anxiety, and also that their ongoing long-term condition is due to this being managed better. Patients leave therapy with better understanding of their emotional and physical wellbeing and with skills to help them carry on working on their further progress.

Individuals experiencing LTC wanting to seek psychological support with our service benefit from a tailored approach to the individual needs. This can include adapting the length of the sessions, such as booking longer session appointments to allow for short breaks within the session should this be required, or shorter session to accommodate symptoms such as brain fog which can intensify when a lot of information is being processed, incorporate movement breaks so that muscles and the body do not stiffen or cramp. We are aware that individuals that have an LTC may need to cancel appointments due to their health or have other health care appointments that need to be attended, therefore we will coordinate with you when planning your appointments to ensure they happen at best time of day and do not clash with your other healthcare appointments. This willl give consideration to ensure that both mental health and physical health needs are prioritised.

We can offer joint working’ with other healthcare professionals and teams, e.g. specialist nurses, to ensure both mental health and physical health needs are being met to ensure a holistic approach to treatment.

There are many options of treatment for Long Term Conditions, including HI CBT LTC (explained above), our Living Well Course, individual guided self help, Psychological Therapy and Interpersonal Therapy (IPT). Treatment options will be discussed with you at assessment.

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