What happens in a session?
A psychology appointment might take place at a range of sites within the CTM UHB health board. We will try to accommodate where is most convenient for you where possible.
First Appointment
When a family is seen for the first time, they will be given an appointment of up to 50 minutes. During this meeting everyone who attends has a chance to talk through and think about the difficulties they are facing. If at the end of this meeting, the Paediatric Clinical Psychologist believes they can be of help they will tell the family what this will involve and invite them to decide if they want to proceed. You may only need one or two meetings, or you may need more. It varies for different people and problems.
At a first appointment it is helpful for us to hear all about you, your life, hobbies, school/college/work, friends and family, as well as the background to your medical condition. We will also think together about the difficulties that you have been experiencing, how these are impacting on your life and condition, and how you and your family cope.
We help everybody differently and have many different therapy techniques, but some of the things we do are:
- Asking questions and talking about anything that you have difficulty with or that you might want help for.
- Asking you to keep a diary of certain feelings or behaviours.
- Playing special games or drawing.
We Do |
We Don't |
| Like to talk to you | Wear white coats |
| Like to listen to you | Give you medicine or examinations |
| Ask about your thoughts and feelings or things that might feel difficult | Read minds |
| Ask about your life at home, school and with your friends | Make decisions for you |
| Play games and do drawing | Judge you |
| Take your worries seriously and do our best to help them feel easier | Ignore what you feel |
Attend Anywhere Appointments
Sometimes we might offer you an online appointment. We now use an online app called 'Attend Anywhere' to hold some of our psychology sessions. Attend Anywhere works in the same way as other video calling apps, where you will see and hear us on camera and we will be able to see and hear you. When you receive an appointment from us, we will send out instructions on how to use Attend Anywhere. Online appointments may feel a little different, but we can talk through this together.
Follow-up
If it is thought that it would be helpful for you to return for further appointments, this will normally be arranged in the first appointment. Follow up appointments will allow us to get to know you better, to talk about things that may be difficult in more depth, and to come up with a plan for supporting you and your family.
We use a number of different evidence-based therapies to try and help. That is, we know from research that these can be helpful for children and young people experiencing the same kinds of difficulties as you. These might include, among others:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- What is CBT? Making Sense of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Mind Website)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Compassion Focused Therapy
- Compassion Focused Therapy (Talking Change NHS Solent Website)
- Three Circles (Threat, Drive and Soothing systems) - Compassion Focused Therapy
EMDR Therapy
- What is EMDR? - EMDR Institute - EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING THERAPY
-
EMDR for CYP Information Booklet (Read Version)
Also, we will use motivational strategies to work together to break down a bigger goal into smaller, achievable chunks. Thinking and planning about how to feel motivated to reach these goals.
We may also use systemic approaches, this means working with the whole family, and other systems around a young person with a medical condition for example, school or your medical team.
We may meet with (older) children on their own, with parents on their own, or with the whole family together.