There are many types of therapeutic approaches. Each of them are used for different presenting issues and are used to tailor therapy to meet your specific requirements. You have most likely heard of some of them, or even tried them before. Your psychologist will use a range of therapy approaches based on your needs and with your goals in mind. Our team of psychologists work with a combination of approaches including: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT); Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectic Behavioural Therapy (DBT); Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR); Schema Therapy; Motivational Interviewing, Solution Focussed Therapy and Family Therapy. Please take a look at our Meet the Team page to find out which psychologist works with these approaches. If you wish to try a specific approach we are happy to discuss this with you and allocate you to the right psychologist.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a particular type of treatment that psychologists use with clients to address issues of anxiety, anger, depression and numerous other mental health problems. CBT has become one of the most popular types of therapy, because it’s goal-oriented, hands-on and has been proven to work. CBT involves looking at the link between a person’s thoughts, feelings and actions, and how each may affect their perception and wellbeing. CBT aims to help a person change unhelpful or unhealthy patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. It’s based on the understanding that negative thinking is a bad habit that needs to be broken. The idea is to show a person how their negative thinking affects their mood, and prevents them from achieving their goals or living a full life. CBT involves learning practical strategies for approaching challenges and problems in a more positive way.

ACT is a type of mindful psychotherapy that helps you stay focused on the present moment. ACT is effective for a wide range of psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression and OCD. It helps you to accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment. It aims to help you move forward through difficult emotions so you can put your energy into healing instead of dwelling on the negative. ACT develops psychological flexibility and is a form of behavioural therapy that combines mindfulness skills with the practice of self-acceptance. When aiming to be more accepting of your thoughts and feelings, commitment plays a key role. ACT helps you commit to facing problems head-on rather than avoiding your stresses. By committing to actions, this will enable you to facilitate experiences and embrace challenges.

DBT is an evidence-based treatment where the primary concern is of overwhelming emotions, impulsivity, conflict or relationship difficulties or impulsivity or social difficulties. This has included Autism Spectrum Disorder, anger, anxiety, bipolar, depression, Eating Disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and some Personality Disorders. DBT has four main components; Emotional Regulation; to help understand the function of emotions, what makes us vulnerable to our emotional state, the action urges that accompany each emotion, and whether to follow or oppose these compulsions as they occur. We also explore how to increase the frequency of positive emotions and decrease negative emotions. Interpersonal Effectiveness; skills are designed to build and maintain positive relationships, establish boundaries within relationships and increase self-respect as well as assertiveness and develop effective communication skills and reduce conflict. Mindfulness; DBT works to address impulsivity through the use of Mindfulness. This is particularly key in PTSD as it helps clients to distinguish between what is occurring in the present moment from what may be a prior trigger or a future-focused fear. DBT also uses Distress Tolerance or crisis survival skills to help clients who may have experienced impulsive behaviours, substance use, suicidal ideation or other maladaptive coping mechanisms to replace these behaviours with strategies to help them manage their own pain and suffering in a healthy and more adaptive way. In this stage the focus is to help clients in circumstances where they may not be able to control the situation and instead need to focus on their own response to the external stimuli. At Adelaide Psychological Services we provide both individual and group based DBT services to help clients build their skills in self-soothing and engage in longer term goals to improve their quality of life to work towards a “life worth living”.

Family Therapy seeks to redress communication and understanding in couple and family relationships. Family Therapy emerged from Systemic Theory, where the quality of relationship cohesion was considered to contribute to positive mental and physical health. Stressful life events can challenge relationship cohesion impacting on our mental health by leaving family members feeling overwhelmed, anxious, sad or angry. In this state behaviour can start to change and contribute to behavioural concerns and low mood. Managing ourselves through these times can be difficult and families may become stuck in hurtful or unhelpful patterns of behaviour or communication. Our qualified family therapist has completed specialised training in Systemic and Family Therapy, which provide the skills to assist families managing illnesses, addictions or eating problems, loss or trauma, separation and blended families, school difficulties and developmental concerns or conditions such as autism or attention deficit disorder. Family Therapy provides an environment where family members present can express and explore thoughts and emotions in response to such challenges and guide the family towards better relationships, behaviour and mental health. Sessions will be a mixture of individual, couple or family appointments. Sometimes children or adults will be seen on their own or with other family members. A family can include immediate family members, extended family members grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends, even carers, schools or other professionals when required.

Motivational interviewing is a therapy technique we use to help our clients find the motivation to make a positive behavioural change. This approach is particularly effective for anyone who has mixed feelings about changing a behaviour and helps to work on decision-making skills. Motivational Interviewing allows space for the true power of change rests with the client. This approach is typically used amongst a range of other therapy modalities.

EMDR (eye movement desensitisation reprocessing) is an evidence-based, 8-phase approach proven effective in the treatment of trauma, anxiety and other disorders. EMDR uses a client’s rapid, rhythmic eye movements. These eye movements reduce emotionally charged memories of past traumatic events. Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist’s finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field. Sometimes, a bar of moving lights or headphones is used instead. The eye movements will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked to report back on the experiences you have had during each of these sets of eye movements. Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images and feelings. In addition to its use for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, EMDR has been successfully used to treat:

• anxiety and panic attacks
• depression
• stress
• phobias
• sleep problems
• complicated grief
• addictions
• pain relief, phantom limb pain
• self-esteem and performance anxiety

Schemas consist of a set of perceptions, emotions and actions and the meaning given to them. They typically arise from early childhood experiences and are perpetuated throughout adulthood, influencing our experiences and behaviour within our most important relationships. Most people have developed schemas that help them to better understand themselves, other people and events in the world. These themes and patterns of beliefs, emotions and behavior can be lifelong, outside of awareness and difficult to identify and shift. The Schema Therapy approach draws on cognitive, behavioural, attachment, psychodynamic and emotion-focused (gestalt) models. There is a focus on the therapeutic relationship and affective aspects of the process. The aim is to help people to recognise when a schema has been triggered, separate themselves from the schema, develop their “Healthy Adult” mode, improve their ability to process emotions; and overall modify their behavior towards a more adaptive response or approach to situations and relationships.