Our services
What we can help with
The areas we work with most often, for children, young people, and adults.
Services in detail
Service
Anxiety & panic
Generalised anxiety, panic, social anxiety, separation anxiety, phobias, health anxiety
For the kind of worry that hijacks sleep, focus, or your sense of control. CBT offers a structured way to loosen its grip, step by step.
Works well for
- Worry that is hard to switch off, including at night
- Panic attacks and the fear of having another
- Social situations that feel disproportionately threatening
- Separation difficulties, for yourself or for a child you care for
- Specific fears or phobias that get in the way of daily life
- Intense focus on physical symptoms or health
Anxiety is useful when it flags real threats. It becomes a problem when it starts treating everyday situations, sensations, or thoughts as if they were emergencies, and when the effort of avoiding or checking begins to shape your life rather than protect it.
Whether it shows up as constant low-level worry, sudden panic, preoccupation with physical symptoms, social fear, or a specific phobia, CBT works with the loops that keep anxiety in place: the thoughts, the behaviours that seem to help in the moment, and the meaning your mind is assigning to what your body is doing.
What to expect
- Mapping the cycle that keeps anxiety going for you specifically
- Practical experiments to test what your mind is predicting
- Skills for working with intrusive thoughts and physical sensations
- Between-session practice that we choose together, never sprung on you
Service
Low mood & depression
Depressive episodes, persistent low mood
When things feel heavy, flat, or distant, CBT helps you gently re-engage with what matters and rebuild a steadier footing.
Works well for
- A low mood that has outlasted an obvious cause
- Loss of pleasure in things that used to feel meaningful
- Tiredness, low motivation, and mornings that feel heavy
- Harsh self-critical thinking that feels like fact
- Withdrawal from people or activities that used to matter
Depression is more than sadness. It is a quiet flattening: of energy, of interest, of the sense that anything you do will make a difference. Small tasks feel large. Things you used to enjoy feel far away. The mind offers convincing reasons not to try.
CBT for depression works on two fronts at once: the patterns of thinking that keep the heaviness in place, and the shrinking of activity that quietly reinforces them. Both shift, in steps, at a pace that is survivable.
What to expect
- A collaborative map of what lifts and what deepens the mood
- Behavioural activation: small, paced re-engagement with life
- Work on the thoughts that keep the flattening in place
- Clear review points so progress (or its absence) is visible
Service
Stress & burnout
Chronic stress, burnout, low self-confidence
For demands that have quietly outgrown your capacity to meet them. We look at what is depleting you and what can realistically change.
Works well for
- Sustained work, study, or caring demands with little recovery
- A sense of running on empty even after time off
- Irritability, cynicism, or emotional flatness
- Persistent worry that is hard to switch off
- Low self-confidence that shows up at work or in relationships
Stress on its own is not a disorder. It is the mind and body doing their job. Burnout is what happens when the load has been high for too long without genuine recovery, and the usual strategies for coping have stopped working.
The work is honest about context. Sometimes it is the thoughts that need shifting; sometimes it is the load, the boundaries, or the recovery routines. CBT provides a framework for sorting which is which, and for changing what can realistically be changed.
What to expect
- A realistic picture of current load, recovery, and capacity
- Work on patterns of over-commitment, perfectionism, or self-criticism
- Practical strategies for boundaries and switching off
- Honest conversations about what only structural change can fix
Service
Trauma & PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder, single-event trauma
A paced, evidence-based approach for working with difficult past experiences, carefully and at a speed that feels safe.
Works well for
- A single distressing event whose impact has not faded
- Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
- Hypervigilance or feeling on edge much of the time
- Avoiding reminders of the event: people, places, thoughts
- Emotional numbness or feeling disconnected from others
Trauma is not only about what happened; it is about how the mind and body are still responding. Flashbacks, hypervigilance, sleep disturbance, emotional numbing, and avoidance are not signs of weakness. They are a system that is still reacting as if the threat were present.
Trauma-focused CBT is one of the most researched treatments for PTSD and related difficulties. It is structured, paced, and works only at a speed you can tolerate. We often begin with stabilisation, never rushing toward the difficult material before the ground is steady.
What to expect
- Careful early work on safety, stabilisation, and pacing
- A shared understanding of how the trauma is being held
- Gradual, structured work with the traumatic memory itself
- Ongoing attention to your window of tolerance throughout
A note on fit: Not suitable where trauma is still actively ongoing (such as current abuse). A different kind of support, safety and stabilisation, is needed first.
Service
OCD & intrusive thoughts
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, intrusive thought spectrum
Structured support for the loops of unwanted thoughts and compulsions, grounded in approaches with strong research behind them.
Works well for
- Unwanted thoughts that feel disturbing or out of character
- Urges to check, wash, repeat, or seek reassurance
- Mental compulsions: reviewing, counting, neutralising
- Hours a day lost to the loop
- Distress when compulsions are resisted
OCD is often misunderstood as a preference for tidiness. In practice it is a relentless loop: unwanted thoughts that feel meaningful or threatening, and compulsions (visible or mental) that seem to offer relief but, over time, teach the mind to keep looping.
The approach that has the strongest evidence for OCD is a form of CBT called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). It is carefully paced, done collaboratively, and built around experiments that show the mind, through repeated experience, that it does not need the compulsion to stay safe.
What to expect
- A shared understanding of how the loop works for you
- A hierarchy of small, graded exposure exercises
- Work on beliefs that give the thoughts their weight
- Careful pacing: we never move faster than you can follow
Service
Body image & BDD
Body dysmorphic disorder, appearance preoccupation
For a painful preoccupation with perceived flaws in appearance that has started to shape daily life.
Works well for
- Persistent preoccupation with a perceived flaw in appearance
- Hours lost to checking mirrors, comparing, or covering
- Avoidance of photographs, mirrors, or social situations
- Anxiety about how others perceive you
- Reassurance-seeking that helps briefly, then doesn’t
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is more than being dissatisfied with how you look. It is a persistent, distressing focus on a perceived flaw that others may not even notice, and an often-exhausting pattern of checking, comparing, covering, or avoiding built up around it.
CBT for BDD is structured and paced. It works on the attention bias, the meaning given to appearance, and the rituals that feel like relief in the moment but keep the loop going. Room is made for the emotional texture of the work, not just the behavioural side.
What to expect
- A shared understanding of how the preoccupation is being held
- Work on the behaviours that reinforce it (checking, reassurance)
- Graded experiments to loosen the grip of the feared beliefs
- Careful pacing: no surprises, no pressure
Something else?
If what you’re carrying isn’t listed
Concerns rarely fit neatly into named categories. If you’re not sure whether what you’re bringing is something we can help with, please still get in touch. We’ll be honest about whether CBT is the right fit, and point you toward somewhere more suitable if it’s not.
Get in touchScope of practice
Who we work with, and don’t
We’d rather be honest about fit than stretch to work outside what we can do well.
We work with
- Children, young people, and adults
- In person at our consulting room in Milton Keynes, or online across the UK
- CBT and CBT-informed approaches (including ERP, CBT-I, trauma-focused CBT)
- Neurodivergent individuals, a particular area of interest
- Short- to medium-term, structured courses of therapy
We don’t offer
- Crisis support or out-of-hours contact
- Forensic assessments or medico-legal reports
- Medication (we are not prescribing clinicians)
- Assessments for benefits or immigration purposes
If your needs fall outside this scope, please speak to your GP in the first instance. For urgent mental health support, NHS 111 is a good first port of call. For immediate distress, please see the crisis signposting in the site footer.
Ready when you are
Get in touch whenever you’re ready
If anything here felt like the right kind of support, or if you’re unsure, a short message is enough to start the conversation.
We reply within 2 working days.