The South Gloucestershire Psychological Therapies Service delivers specialist, evidence-based psychological interventions to adults who are accessing community mental health services in the South Gloucestershire area. The service has two main functions:
1. Providing psychological therapy
This involves talking, listening, and creative approaches to support individuals in developing understanding and making positive changes in their lives. A range of interventions is offered, including psychological and neuropsychological assessment, formulation, psychoeducational groups, individual therapy, and group therapy.
2. Supporting mental health teams through psychologically informed practice
This includes offering supervision and advice to other mental health professionals, helping to guide positive interactions that benefit service users. Members of the team often work alongside mental health staff in this capacity.
To be referred to the Psychological Therapies Service (PTS), please discuss this with your key worker (formerly known as care coordinator).
What happens next?
If you are referred to the Psychological Therapies Service, you will be invited to have a conversation with a member of our team. We encourage you to ask a family member, friend, or carer to join us in this conversation, if you feel that would be helpful.
Together, we will decide whether now is the right time to start working with PTS, and if so, which type of intervention would be best suited to your needs.
An assessment will be tailored to your needs, this can sometimes take more than one appointment. These are some of the things the assessment may involve:
• an opportunity for you to describe your strengths and difficulties
• a chance to develop an understanding of how your difficulties arose
• you may be asked about things that have happened in your life (but you do not have to talk about anything that you do not want to)
• completing some questionnaires
A number of individual and group therapies are available. Therapy can be helpful for some people, but it does not work for everyone. Research also tells us that some kinds of therapy work better for some people than others. You may also have your own preferences about the kind of therapy you would like.
• What would you like therapy to help you with?
• If there are many things, which would make the most difference to you being able to get the most out of life?
• Can you attend regularly?
• Are you able to take an active role in sessions?
• Some therapies ask you to complete tasks between sessions - is this something you could do?
• Are you ready to make changes?
• Are you able/willing to explore your feelings?
• Is now a good time for you to do this?
• Therapy can sometimes bring up difficult feelings – do you feel able to cope with this now?
• How much support do you have?
Contact us
South Gloucestershire Psychological Therapies Service
Kingswood Civic Centre,
Kingswood,
South Gloucestershire,
BS15 9TR
Phone: 0117 378 4480
Services we offer
Arts Psychotherapy offers a safe place to explore and express thoughts, feelings and experiences that may be intruding on your life. Using art materials can be helpful when words are difficult or not enough. Art Psychotherapy offers the opportunity to express yourself creatively and explore the relationship between present difficulties and past experiences.
Click here to view our downloadable leaflet.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is effective for a wide range of problems. The therapist and client work together to understand problems in terms of the way people think, feel and behave. Goals, steps and strategies are identified over the course of the treatment. CBT aims to learn more helpful ways of coping with your problems now and in the future.
Further information
Click below to view our downloadable leaflets:
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a type of cognitive behavioural treatment designed for people who experience difficulties in managing their emotions and who may self-harm and have attempted suicide.
People with behaviours associated with emotionally unstable personality disorder are likely to benefit from DBT.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychological therapy for trauma and other mental health problems. It is one of the recommended treatments for people who experience post-traumatic stress. At first, therapists help the client to develop skills and techniques to help manage any difficult feelings which may arise either during or after a session. These may include:
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breathing exercises
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visualisations
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relaxation techniques
The therapist will help to identify a traumatic memory and an image which represents it. The client will be asked to think about this image whilst the therapist guides their eyes to move rapidly from side to side. Whilst their eyes are following the hand movements of the therapist, they will be asked to notice thoughts, feelings, memories or sensations that arise. There are alternatives to using eye movements, such as tapping on either side of the body, or listening to tones in different ears. The important part of the therapy seems to be the left-right stimulation of the brain. EMDR can help reduce the distress caused by different parts of the memory, whether it was what was seen, heard, smelt, tasted, felt or thought.
Why Family & Couple Therapy?
When someone experiences a mental health problem, it can be hard for their partner, family and network around them too. People often see things in different ways and may not know what to do for the best. FaCT is a way of seeing things from numerous perspectives to help mutual understanding and identify changes that could be helpful for everyone.
Who is Family & Couple Therapy for?
FaCT is often useful with communication problems, stuckness or conflict in close relationships. However, it can also be helpful when people feel their relationships are ok, but would like family and network members to participate in therapy meetings so that everyone has the opportunity to contribute to things getting better.
Mentalization-based Treatment (MBT) aims to help develop the capacity to make sense of one’s own actions and feelings and also those of others. This can be very important in regulating emotions and impulses and helping us develop fulfilling, meaningful relationships. MBT is a talking therapy used to treat people with symptoms and behaviour associated with borderline personality disorder.
Music Psychotherapy (MT) draws on the power of music in a therapeutic relationship to manage a range of conditions and improve your quality of life. A music psychotherapist tailors sessions to your needs; these can include trauma processing, improving anxiety and depression and developing a stronger sense of identity and self-confidence.
This evidence-based approach is an alternative to other types of talking therapies, and it is particularly useful when words are difficult or not enough.
MT can be an active process, where clients play a role in creating music, or a receptive one that involves listening or responding to music.
Anyone can engage in MT; you do not need a background in music to experience its beneficial effects.
Further information
Click below to view our downloadable leaflets:
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy tries to understand the reasons behind symptoms, emotional distress and relationship difficulties. It can help develop understanding of how past experiences, current ways of thinking and anxieties about the future are causing difficulties now.
Psycho-educational groups provide information and education about a particular mental health difficulty. These groups can help people gain more knowledge about their mental health difficulty and develop coping strategies so that getting on with everyday life is a little bit easier. We have offered hearing voices workshops, mentalization based education groups, managing bi-polar disorder groups and trauma stabilisation group Safety First.