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Important information about your appointments

First appointment

Your first appointment is for an assessment. At the end we will discuss with you what help may best meet your needs. We will inform your GP (or any other professional who referred you) what we have decided to offer, and the outcome of the treatment.

Urgent help

We are not an emergency service. Due to COVID-19 and high pressure on A&E departments, please do not go to your local A&E if experiencing a mental health crisis. For urgent help, please contact your GP for an emergency appointment or SLaM Mental Health Support 24-hour helpline on 0800 731 2864.

Other crisis services you can use: Samaritans 24 hour helpline on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org , Solidarity in A Crisis (freephone) on 03001231922, Lambeth Short Term Support Service on 0800 0902456, or The Listening Place which is a service run by volunteers supported and supervised by mental health professionals.

Confidentiality

The information you give is confidential within the NHS. That means it is not disclosed outside of the NHS unless we have your permission. However, we will inform other people if we think you are at risk to yourself or to other people. For example if we were concerned that you may be about to harm yourself or another adult or child. Then we would be required to inform other authorities.

Questionnaires

Your therapist will ask you to complete questionnaires about how you are feeling and doing, every week. This is essential so that we can keep track of your progress. They will also ask you to do other tasks in your week, including completing diaries for homework. This is to make sure that what we do works in your everyday life.

CBT is a type of talking treatment that focuses on how your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect your feelings and behaviour, and teaches you coping skills for dealing with different problems. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the ‘here and now’ and looks for ways to improve your state of mind in the present.

How is CBT delivered?

CBT can be done individually or with a group of people. It can also be done from self-help materials or an online computer programme.

What to expect in sessions

  • CBT is a structured approach where you would agree with your therapist which problems you want to focus on and what your goals are.
  • It can be easy to talk about doing something different but much harder to actually do it. CBT is about ‘doing’ therapy rather than ‘having’ therapy.
  • During the sessions, you will work through exercises to explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This may be in the form of diagrams, worksheets or booklets.
  • With CBT you will be given work to do in your own time, so at the end of each session you might agree on some exercises to work on for ‘homework’ before the next session so you can practice these changes in your everyday life. This is a crucial part of CBT, so for it to be effective, you do need to be able to commit your own time to complete the work over the course of treatment, and afterwards.

How effective is CBT?

  • It is one of the most effective treatments for conditions where anxiety or depression is the main problem.
  • The strength of CBT is that you can continue to practise and develop your skills even after the sessions have finished. This makes it less likely that your symptoms or problems will return.

If you would like some more information about what to expect from therapy sessions please visit http://www.supportingsafetherapy.org/.

Nurse talking with patient
Our Attendance Policy

If you are unable to attend please email one of the team administrators
at LambethIAPTAdministrators@slam.nhs.uk

For the treatment to work, you need to have regular appointments. If you do not attend your appointment and do not call us beforehand to cancel and let us know, you may lose that session. If this happens again, you will be discharged and will not be offered another appointment.

If there are major unavoidable reasons that stop you coming, please let us know and cancel before the appointment. If you are late for your session we might not be able to see you, and this would also count as a missed appointment. If you have to cancel two appointments, you will be discharged and treatment will end. You may then be able to restart treatment at a later date when you know you can attend regularly.