Once you have been referred by your GP or you have made a self-referral, we will book you in with one of our therapists for an initial telephone assessment.

At this assessment, the therapist will discuss your current difficulties, how they have been affecting you, and discuss the possible treatment options with you. A face-to-face appointment can be arranged if you would prefer this. This first appointment/telephone call will last around 30-45 minutes. Following the assessment, we will get back to you within a few days to confirm your treatment package. We offer a range of therapies, which can be provided in a variety of ways.

Living well – after therapy
You and your therapist will decide together when it is the right time to end your therapy sessions. When this time comes, your therapist will work with you to plan ways to help maintain your progress, for example:

• Continued access to paper-based and online materials used in therapy
• Helping you construct a plan in case things worsen again
• Signposting to other services

In the Richmond Wellbeing Service you may be offered one of our seminars or courses.
You can get more details about these here.

All the treatment we offer at the Richmond Wellbeing service follows the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) “stepped care” treatment guidelines. This means you can be confident that your therapy has scientific evidence that proves its effectiveness. In “stepped care” the least intensive intervention that is appropriate for a person is provided first to maximise the chances of a swift recovery.

The early steps are typically delivered in a seminar or lecture format. This means we can offer you an appropriate treatment quickly. We understand that attending in the presence of others can sometimes seem daunting, and have put together a list of FAQ’s to reassure you and dispel some of the myths that we have encountered.

Complete our short form and we will get in touch to talk you through our available options

Guided Self Help, also known as Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), is an effective way of helping people with mild to moderate psychological problems such as depression or anxiety.

Self-help programmes are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). These can be:

• Telephone or face-to-face sessions
• Workbooks
• Computerised self-help therapy programmes such as Silvercloud or Living life to the Full and Books on Prescription.

Guided Self Help can help people begin to manage their problems themselves, in a more effective way.

These programmes fit in well with people who have busy lives or who find it difficult to attend face-to-face therapy sessions. It means that you can also work on your difficulties in your own time and at your own pace.

Complete our short form and we will get in touch to talk you through our available options

CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is a highly recommended therapy that can help you overcome your problems by learning different ways of thinking about your difficulties and what you do to solve them.

The aim of therapy is to enable you to become your own therapist.

CBT is particularly helpful if you are:

• Feeling very anxious or panicky
• Worrying about things a lot of the time (including worries about your health or safety)
• Feeling depressed or sad
• Feeling hopeless or that life is not worth living
• Having thoughts, impulses to do things or pictures that come into your mind that you can’t get rid of
• Problems controlling your anger
• Severe shyness that stops you getting on with your life
• Having difficulty coming to terms with trauma (e.g. a street robbery) or suffering with PTSD
• Phobias, e.g. fear of spiders, flying, needles, dogs, etc.

CBT is best for people with a specific problem they want to work on. You will be asked to work on your problem between sessions using the advice your therapist gives you.

Complete our short form and we will get in touch to talk you through our available options

This approach has been shown to be helpful when it seems to you that your health and wellbeing are closely connected to difficulties in your romantic relationship. Together, you can look at patterns that seem to have become fixed and try to find ways to change them. Your partner will need also to register with the service and attend with you. You will often be given tasks to try between sessions.

Problems that can be helped include:

• Low mood or anxiety linked to issues in the relationship
• Distress, anger or hopelessness following significant events which impact the relationship

Complete our short form and we will get in touch to talk you through our available options

DIT is a 16 session therapy for depression. DIT explores ways in which difficult experiences in the past can continue to affect the way you feel and behave in the present and how this is contributing to your depression.

When you experience something painful in the past, you can develop coping strategies to protect yourself from experiencing further hurt or disappointment. These can sometimes become second nature and you can apply them to lots of different interactions with people without realising it.

Whilst you might feel safer continuing these strategies, they can also create feelings of loneliness and depression.

DIT can help you to identify these patterns in your current relationships with others and help you to understand what you may miss out on when engaging in these patterns. With help, you can start to understand yourself better, change the way you respond to other people, and improve your current situation and your mood.

Brief Psychodynamic Therapy/Counselling for depression is a form of talking therapy in which the therapist will explore with you the underlying sources of your problems, which may stem from childhood as well as current relationship and emotional experiences. Psychodynamic work may use the interpersonal relationship which develops between you and the therapist as a valuable source of information in the work. A maximum of 12 sessions can be offered to you in this approach.

Complete our short form and we will get in touch to talk you through our available options

The Primary Care Liaison team focuses on supporting individuals within primary care who are experiencing mental health difficulties. We are an accessible service, based in community clinics and GP surgeries across the borough of Richmond.

Your Primary Care Liaison Practitioner will be an experienced mental health clinician, who will work with you to:

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of your mental health needs
• Carry out a medication review – considering whether medication would be helpful and / or reviewing any medications you may already be taking
• Address any questions about diagnosis
• Create a comprehensive care plan
• Provide follow-up appointments
• Liaise with other services as needed.

If you feel it would be helpful to meet with a member of the Primary Care Liaison Team to discuss your mental health needs, please contact your GP initially and they will make a referral to our service.

What the Employment Service Offers
Employment support is available for people referred and receiving treatment from Richmond NHS Talking Therapies and who are:

• Out of work both short and long term unemployed who want to get into paid employment
• In work and need help and support to stay in employment
• In work and want support to find / get another job including a career change

Personalised support tailored to the individual’s needs:

• Advice and career guidance
• Motivation, confidence building and assertiveness skills
• CV writing, job search and interviewing skills
• Disclosure of mental health within the workplace
• Signposting to benefits and debt counselling
• Partnership working with Job Centre Plus (JCP) and other providers
• Job Club – peer support and partner agency working

Personalised support to retain employment include:

• Adjustments in the workplace
• Management of employment and employer-related issues
• Developing self-management strategies at work
• Support and strategies to return to work after sick leave
• Attendance at workplace Sickness Review and Mediation meetings
• Liaison with HR and Occupational health departments
• Help to look for more suitable jobs whilst still employed
• Supporting in signposting for legal matters within the workplace and supporting during the process

Who is Eligible for the Employment Service?
You can be referred to employment support if you are having or expected to receive treatment within our NHS Talking Therapies services.