Private Psychologists and Therapists in Durham

CBT works on a simple observation: how you think about a situation changes how you feel about it, and how you feel changes what you do. Those loops get stuck. Anxious thoughts lead to avoiding things, which makes the anxiety worse. Low mood leads to withdrawing, which deepens the low mood. CBT gives you practical ways to break into that cycle.

It's active work rather than open-ended talking. You and your psychologist pin down the specific thoughts and behaviours holding the problem in place, then try out different ones, both in sessions and between them. NICE recommends CBT as a first-line treatment for depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD.

Five of our six Durham practitioners are trained in CBT. Sessions run at Durham Workspace in Pity Me, or online if that's easier.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It helps the brain reprocess distressing memories so they stop feeling like they are happening now, using gentle left-right stimulation, usually eye movements. You don't have to describe the trauma in detail for it to work, which is why it often suits people who have struggled with talking therapies.

NICE, the NHS and the World Health Organization all recognise EMDR as an effective treatment for PTSD. It also helps with anxiety, phobias, grief and performance anxiety.

It is well tolerated and considered safe. Some people feel tired for a day or two afterwards, or notice more vivid dreams, as the brain carries on processing. Your therapist will explain what to expect and won't push you faster than you want to go.

Dr Becky Lowe, Dr Sara Sexton and Victoria Parkinson all offer EMDR at our Durham clinic, three of the six practitioners based there. Appointments are at Pity Me or online.

Children rarely announce what's wrong. It shows up instead as stomach aches before school, sleep that won't settle, anger that seems out of proportion, or a child who has just gone quiet.

How we work depends on age. Younger children do better with play, drawing and activity-based sessions. Teenagers usually prefer to talk more directly. Families come to us about anxiety, low mood, school refusal, friendships and bullying, behaviour that has become hard to handle at home, and bereavement or family change.

Two of the practitioners at our Durham clinic work with children and young people: Dr Becky Lowe and Dr Elysia Walker. Sessions are in Pity Me or online.

If you would never speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself, that's the gap CFT works on.

It treats self-compassion as a skill you can train rather than a personality trait you either have or don't. The aim is to settle the threat system that keeps shame and self-criticism running. It often helps people who have done other therapy that made sense intellectually but never quite changed how they felt, and it works well alongside CBT for depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and trauma.

Dr Glenn Scott, Dr Lisa Stuart and Victoria Parkinson offer CFT at Durham. You can see them at the Pity Me clinic or online.

Some difficulties repeat. The same argument in every relationship, or the same retreat whenever things get hard.

CAT works on exactly that. Over roughly 16 to 24 sessions, you and your therapist map those cycles out on paper. Drawing them turns a pattern you have been living inside into something you can look at from the outside, which is usually the point things start to shift. There's a defined endpoint from the start, so it suits people who don't want therapy to be open-ended.

Dr Glenn Scott and Dr Lisa Stuart are both CAT-trained and based at Durham. Sessions run at Durham Workspace, or online.

Trauma changes what feels safe. It can surface as flashbacks, avoiding certain places and people, broken sleep, or a permanent sense of being braced for something to go wrong. There isn't always one clear memory attached to it.

Trauma-Focused CBT works on that directly, at a pace you set. It pairs the practical structure of CBT with care built specifically around trauma. NICE recommends it for PTSD, and it's used with adults as well as children and young people.

Dr Elysia Walker offers Trauma-Focused CBT at Durham. If her availability doesn't suit, the Pathway Team can talk you through the alternatives.

Some problems sit between people rather than inside one of them. When that's the case, working with the family together usually gets further than working with one person alone.

Family therapy looks at the patterns a household falls into: who speaks, who withdraws, which arguments keep repeating and what keeps them going. Sessions normally involve more than one family member, though not everyone has to come every time.

It helps most often around separation and divorce, one person's mental health difficulty affecting everyone else, bereavement, or the adjustment when a family blends or changes shape.

Family therapy for Durham clients is arranged through the Pathway Team, who will confirm the practitioner and whether sessions run in person or online.

Most therapy sets out to change how you think or feel. ACT starts from a different place: that fighting a difficult thought often costs more than the thought itself.

You learn to hold thoughts more lightly instead, and to notice one as a thought rather than an instruction. The energy that frees up goes into what actually matters to you. It's practical work, built around your values rather than analysis.

ACT suits long-running anxiety, chronic pain and health conditions, and low mood that hasn't shifted with other approaches. Anywhere the struggle itself has quietly become the problem.

ACT for Durham clients is arranged through the Pathway Team, who will confirm the practitioner and whether sessions run in person or online.