Specialist Child and Adolescent Therapy Services
About 10% of 5-15 year olds have a mental health issue, this is higher for girls than for boys. This would therefore equate to about 3 people in an average school class. Some of the issues we have helped children and adolescents with include:
- OCD
- Anxiety and worry
- Panic attacks
- Family issues
- Bereavement
- Social Anxiety
- Vomit Phobia
- Blood and needle Phobia
- Autistic Spectrum Disorders
- ADHD
- Hair Pulling
- Exam anxiety
- Depression
- Sleep Issues
- Body Dysmorphia
- Self-esteem problems
- Separation anxiety
- School refusal
Having an unwell child is a very frightening time for parents, and we find a lot of parents have struggled to access help for a long time. Your CBT therapist will support and educate parents as to how best to help their child. We also work with closely with schools where necessary. Parents can feel confident that their child is receiving the recommended, evidence based treatment. CBT is proven to be as effective as medication but importantly also to prevent the likelihood of the person having a relapse in the future. The child or young person, and their parents, will learn skills and techniques for good mental health that will help them for many years.
“Hundreds of research trials have shown that CBT works well for adults with many types of anxiety and depression, and it is probably about as effective, overall, as medication. In the past decade or so, people have started to look at whether CBT works for children with anxiety or depression. The results have been very good, showing that it probably works about as well for children as it does for adults. In fact, there are very few studies that have tried any other psychological treatments for children and adolescents. So, if we are being scientific about things, we should plump for CBT every time. Indeed, this is what is starting to happen. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is a British governmental organisation, which decides the best treatments for different health problems. They consider all available research consult with many different experts in the field, and write a report on what are the best treatments. Basically, they decide what the NHS should be doing. NICE have written a report on how depressed children and teenagers should be treated. Their conclusion was that, if the depression is more than just a passing phase, and more than just a reaction to a bad experience (e.g. bullying) then every child should be offered CBT in the first instance”.
Anxiety UK – Children and Young People with Anxiety, A parents and carers guide.
For therapists experience and qualifications please MEET THE CBT TEAM