Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Therapy Surrey
Trauma is a huge and horrible thing for anyone to have to go through, and you don’t need to face it alone.
Our compassionate therapists are here to listen, understand and empathise. At Centre for Psychology, we can use trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help process what you have been through, come to terms with it and find more helpful ways to cope with your symptoms.
Tel: 01483 901 429 Email: guildford@centreforpsychology.co.uk
After going through a traumatic incident, it is possible to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A traumatic experience refers to anything that is highly distressing, stressful or frightening, that is out of the ordinary. PTSD can be the result of various events such as a serious accidents, crimes, physical or sexual assault, abuse, major disasters, war, death, serious health problems or childbirth. It could be something that you directly experienced, or you may have witnessed it, learned that it happened to someone close to you, or dealt with repeated exposures as a first responder.
With PTSD, you may experience distressing memories, images or nightmares when you are reminded of the event. People with PTSD can dissociate, or have flashbacks where they feel like they are reliving the trauma. PTSD can also bring on strong physical sensations such as panic attacks, pain, sweating, heart racing, dizziness or nausea. This can lead to difficulties sleeping and problems with concentration or being unable to relax.
You might notice that you constantly have negative thoughts about the traumatic experience, or are repeatedly asking yourself questions to try to come to terms with what happened. It can be common to have critical or angry thoughts where you might be blaming yourself or other people. People with PTSD often experience strong and intense emotions such as fear, horror, guilt, resentment or shame. You may also feel sad, depressed, low self-worth, numb, or detached.
Avoidance and withdrawl
It is likely that you start to avoid anything that serves as a reminder of the trauma such as people, places, objects or situations. You might even find that you are trying to avoid thinking about it and are suppressing any negative feelings or memories about what happened. As a result you may find that you are withdrawing from other people, becoming more isolated, or maybe feeling that you can’t trust people or being unable to feel happy for them. Perhaps you have stopped looking after yourself or doing things you used to enjoy. You might have less motivation or interest in going out, or feel like the world is a bad and dangerous place. It can be common to feel more on edge, easily startled and scanning for threats. You may have found yourself acting more impulsively or aggressively or turning to unhelpful coping mechanisms like smoking, drinking or using drugs.
If you know which region you live in, then feel free to complete the referral form for that area. Don’t worry if you don’t know, we will ensure your referral gets to the right place either way. If you are a professional referring a client, then please complete the Professional Referral form.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions… for a full list of FAQs, please visit our main FAQs page.
As a service we like to keep our waiting lists as short as possible, therefore we require you to attend all your sessions and we request that you let us know in advance if you are unable to attend an appointment so that your slot can be offered to another client. If you do not attend your appointment and we do not hear from you on that day you may be discharged from our service back to the care of your GP. We do understand that you may have to cancel an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g., illness) but please let us know.
You can refer yourself by telephone or email. We also accept referrals that come to us from your GP and other external organisations that know your needs. One of our Assistant Psychologists will guide you through the process.
Following your assessment, we aim to offer an initial treatment session within 6 working weeks. Our assistant psychologists work daily on our waiting lists and will contact you by telephone when an appointment becomes available that matches your availability. You are likely to be seen sooner if you are flexible on your appointment time/location. Please let us know if you are able to accept a ‘short notice’ appointment.
It is always helpful to keep us updated about your personal circumstances using the contact details you have been given.
Our aim is to offer you an assessment within 10 working days of your referral to our service. Your assessment will usually be over the telephone. During your assessment, the therapist will provide you with the opportunity to explain why you have referred yourself to the service and what you would like support with. Your therapist will also require you to answer a series of questions about your current thoughts, behaviours, physical symptoms, and emotions. The therapist will work with you to discuss a treatment plan should our service be suitable for you. If our service is not the most suitable service for you, the therapist will discuss alternative services to signpost you to.
Should you be unable to attend a telephone assessment we can arrange for you to attend a face-to-face assessment. This may however be a longer wait based on therapist availability.
Psychological therapy is not like taking physical medication. We all respond differently to psychological therapy. Guidance suggests that attending six sessions of CBT is a good starting point. We ask that you attend your pre-booked sessions, engage with the out-of-session tasks and show improvement on the psychological measures. In return, we will continue to work with you.
Occasionally we may recommend that your GP refers you to a different service. If this happens your therapist will talk about the reasons for such a referral.
That’s okay, our therapists are trained to work with you at your telephone assessment to decide on what is the most appropriate form of therapy for your current difficulties.
To maintain confidentiality we would usually recommend that you attend your sessions individually, however, if you require someone to attend your sessions with you then please let us know when your initial appointment is booked so that your therapist can be informed.
We do not have creche facilities so please arrange appropriate childcare for your sessions.
We predominantly offer appointments from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday. We are unable to offer individual appointments at the weekend. We do offer evening courses from 6pm-8pm including: Mindfulness and Stress Management, Anxiety and Depression Management, and our Sleep Clinic.
We are a Surrey-wide service and will always aim to offer you an appointment in a location that is accessible to you, however, you may be required to travel a short distance. The location offered to you will take into account the type of support you are accessing, your availability, and therapist availability.
As a way of increasing availability Centre for Psychology also offers telephone and video sessions which are often more convenient to attend. You will still receive the materials you need either by post or via the internet.
We do not provide support for people under the age of 17. If you are under 17 and feel you would benefit from psychological support we would encourage you to book an appointment with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate services.
If English is not your first language this does not mean that you cannot access our service. Our therapists are trained to work with clients using an interpreter which we will arrange for you. Please translate this page to another language by using the button (bottom left) on any page.
If you are registered with a qualifying GP Surgery in Surrey and over 17 years old then all your therapy is free to you. Centre for Psychology is paid by your local NHS Commissioning Group.
If you do not qualify we are still able to provide you with therapy. There are many reasons that you may wish to self-fund your therapy please contact us for our current fee structure.
If you live in England there are other NHS-funded services providing free therapy. Use the following link to find yours:
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-psychological-therapies-service
