NHS Talking Therapies is a programme designed to increase the availability of talking therapy treatments recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
If you are aged 16 or over and are registered with a GP in Shropshire or Telford and Wrekin you can refer yourself, or you can be referred by your GP or other health professional.
You can refer yourself by completing the online Self-Referral form or by telephone 0300 123 6020.
We provide support for a range of symptoms and conditions including:
Depression can range from occasional low mood to severe depressed mood, which occurs every day. Depression can impact on your relationships, social life, work life, sleep, and feelings of pleasure amongst other things. Depression can range from mild to more severe.
When depression impacts on your life, you may wish to overcome these difficulties and seek help though talking therapy. We provide a range of individual talking therapies, and in some cases where depression can impact on your relationship with your significant other, we can explore couples-based approaches to depression.
There are a range of different support options recommended for depression. These include:
Once you have completed an assessment with us, we can discuss the right sort of therapy for you.
When you experience Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), you will notice that you worry about many different things. The feeling of anxiety is different to panic, in that it is more free floating and constant, with accompanying physical symptoms such as body tension, usually in the shoulders and gastrointestinal disturbance. You may worry about worrying and that you will lose control if you keep worrying, or that there is something wrong with you and it will never stop. You may find uncertainty difficult to deal with and you may want to take control over situations due to feelings of responsibility. You may feel controlled by the worrying and that your brain never shuts off from over-thinking about different future based problems, which can impact on sleep.
The recommended treatment for Generalised Anxiety Disorder is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). We offer this at both low-intensity (Guided Self-Help) and high intensity levels, in a range of different ways, depending on your needs.
Panic is the misinterpretation of physical symptoms in the body: pounding heart, hot flushes, sweating, breathlessness, dizziness etc...
These misinterpretations are thoughts which tend to predict bad outcomes, such as:
This develops a learned 'false alarm' system over time. The false alarm tells you that these physical symptoms are harmful and you need to avoid them at all costs. The physical symptoms feel as if they come out of the blue and usually reach a peak within 10 minutes. Sometimes, you may avoid going out to places, in order to avoid these panic attacks, and over time you may fear going out: this is called agoraphobia.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy can help with panic. We offer this at both low-intensity (Guided Self-Help) and high intensity levels, in a range of different ways, depending on your needs.
Social Anxiety is a type of anxiety that impacts us when we are around other people, or in social situations. People with social anxiety will often notice the following symptoms:
The recommended treatment for Social Anxiety is High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In your assessment with us, we will discuss your symptoms and next steps for support.
People with Health Anxiety find they are worried about their health and being ill constantly. These worries can become so severe that they take over everything else in your life. Symptoms can include:
The recommended treatment for Health Anxiety is High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In your assessment with us, we will discuss your symptoms and next steps for support.
People can experience traumatic events in their life where they felt their life was threatened, suffered a near death experience, witnessed the death of someone else, or was abused and couldn't escape. For a number of people these events can have a huge impact on their life after the event. In cases of PTSD people who have experienced a traumatic event can experience 3 main symptoms:
These are normal reactions to unusual traumatic events and can typically last up to 4 weeks after the trauma. However, if these symptoms last for over 4 weeks, then you may need trauma focussed talking therapy to assist you overcome the after effects of the trauma.
There are different recommend treatments for PTSD. These include High Intensity Trauma focussed cognitive behavioural therapies (TF-CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing therapy (EMDR). Your therapist will discuss with you the best option for your needs when you enter treatment.
When you experience OCD, you will experience intrusive thoughts, urges, or images that feel bad, distressing, repugnant or unacceptable. You may doubt yourself and seek to 'neutralise' these thoughts, images, urges by doing certain actions or behaviours that make them vanish or suppresses them in some way.
The problem is that these actions may feel like they reduce anxiety in the short term, but do not last long and can make your distress worse over the long term by creating a vicious cycle. These actions can include:
Everyone has a degree of these thoughts and actions, however OCD is when these normal experiences start to grow and have an impact on your life and it begins to feel like the OCD is in control and not you.
We offer the recommended treatments of Low intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Guided Self-Help) for OCD, with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). For some, a higher intensity type of support will be needed and we also offer High Intensity CBT for OCD, also with ERP.
A specific phobia is an extreme or irrational fear of an animal, object or situation. Fears and phobias are very common. In a recent national survey, 60% of the people interviewed reported that they feared some situation or thing. The most common fears were fears of bugs, mice, snakes, bats, heights, water, public transportation, storms, closed spaces, tunnels and bridges. Many people reported that they feared several things and that they consciously avoided them.
In fact, over 11% of the people indicated that their fears qualified as specific phobias. That is, their fears were persistent and associated with intense anxiety, they avoided or wanted to avoid certain situations, they realised that their fears were excessive or unreasonable, and their fears resulted in distress and difficulty in their normal lives.
We offer the recommended treatment of Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Guided Self-Help) for Phobias. For some, a higher intensity type of support will be needed, and we also offer High Intensity CBT when required.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) effects the way people feel about their appearance. People with BDD spend lots of time worrying about flaws in the way they look. Other symptoms can include:
The recommended treatment for BDD is High Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In your assessment with us, we will discuss your symptoms and next steps for support.
We are a free NHS service providing a range of recommended talking therapies for common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which looks at the way we think (cognitions) and what we do (behaviours), and how that affects the way that we feel. It's the therapy we offer the most, as evidence suggests many people benefit from it, but we do have other therapies available, depending on your needs.
Most people are referred to us via their GP, however you don't need to have a referral from your Doctor to contact us. For a faster service, you can complete our self-referral form, or call to arrange an initial telephone appointment with one of our Mental Health Practitioners, on 0300 123 6020.
You can also click on our chatbot in the bottom-right corner to explore your options.
During the initial appointment the practitioner will discuss your difficulties with you and concentrate on ways in which we can support you to help yourself improve your wellbeing. During your call we will ask you some questions to try to understand how severe your difficulties are at the moment.
All personal information provided to the Trust is treated confidentially. There are, however, some important times when we will need to share information with others in order to optimise your care. It is the responsibility of all health professionals to share some information with your GP and possibly other health care professionals. This is particularly important if there is information which would help to prevent you from harming yourself or someone else. More information on the Trust Privacy Notice.
Our aim is to provide a telephone assessment for everyone within four weeks of contacting us. After that, waiting times vary depending on the type of therapy that is suitable for your needs.
For those that need to see us face to face, we offer appointments in different venues around Telford and Shropshire. We will try to see you in a place that is easy for you to get to, but please be aware we are not able to offer appointments in all areas every day, and you may need to travel to see us.
There are clinics available before 9am, and until 7pm on certain weekdays.
