The therapy I provide falls under the broader term of psychotherapy, which means therapy of the mind, with the aim to build and maintain a better level of coping with your overall mental health i.e. psychological and emotional well-being.
Working to restore our psychological and emotional well-being obviously covers a very broad spectrum of interrelated and connected factors, that if unplanned could literally see therapy run indefinitely, which is not actually in the interest of yourself or the therapist. Therefore Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy is such a powerful approach, as it is a targeted and tailored approach, with agreed goals and treatment planning built it.
The Treatment Plan
In the world of project management, a plan without time scales attached is a dream. I consider we should administratively manage therapy with the same project governance best practice as a corporate project, with the flexibility to tweak the plan as the therapeutic journey progresses.
There is no more important project to deliver than ones own improved mental health balance.
The Bohangar Clinic
The underpinning of the whole therapeutic process in my practice is the Treatment Plan. I will use this plan as a shared working document and will capture the client’s presenting problem or problems, goals of therapy, agreed with outcomes, and an agreed schedule of duration.
Problem Identification
During the first session, I will spend a significant amount of time reviewing the client’s story, to begin the mapping process of the presenting problem(s) and other related factors for consideration. The duration of this phase ends when completed. I set nothing in stone.
To use the analogy of a plane departing the runway, departure takes place once they have filed the flight plan (an agreed treatment Plan version 1), and the tower clears for take-off (therapist and client agree to continue).
At your own pace, the client assessment phase is the most crucial part of the therapeutic process
Goals and Objectives in Football
The aim of the football team is to win the game, the coach takes the team and provides training guidance, mentoring, and strategy. When things are not going well, at halftime the plan comes out, subs come onto the pitch, and the objective remains to win the game but the goals of each player get tweaked.
In therapy the team is you and the therapist, the objective is to cope better with the changes that life presents. We define goals at the start of therapy with the aim to reach those objectives. When we discover more information, and different challenges, the objective remains but the goals may get tweaked and changed.
Home Work or Self-improvement tasks
The best outcome in therapy is to maximise the use of the whole engagement time, from the first session right up to the last session. This in part may rely on what type of learner you are today, is the word homework a red wall or the garden of growth and opportunity? In the safe space of therapy, home tasks will be built specific to the client, not academically taxing, but will require a small amount of commitment to complete.
Photo attribution: Kelly Sikkema, Frankie Lopez on Unsplash
