CBT for anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis - Testimonial

I came to Sarah with a number of issues with anxiety, particularly centred around news, politics and the fear of world events which could affect myself, my family and friends, and anyone I cared about. At this time - as we all know - my greatest fear was realised when COVID-19 struck.

Through the support of Sarah and therapies including Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET) and a meditation called RAIN, I have been able to keep myself calm, rational and able to cope with the current situation. But better than that, it has helped me to see the positives in my situation and for me to know that whilst the world will never be the same again neither will my anxiety and that's a good thing!

(Female, age 26, June 2020)

Persistent (Medically Unexplained) Physical Symptoms

On 8th June, Sarah took part in further online training presented by BABCP. The course was titled “Persistent (Medically Unexplained) Physical Symptoms: A Scientist Practitioner Approach”.

The lone presenter was Professor Trudie Chalder, Professor of Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy at King’s College London.

Persistent (medically unexplained) physical symptoms is an umbrella term for a range of lasting symptoms and syndromes commonly seen in outpatient clinics (e.g. irritable bowel syndrome, non-cardiac chest pain, chronic fatigue, cough hypersensitivity, fibromyalgia, and tension-type headaches).

With COVID-19 we are likely to see people experience ongoing persistent physical symptoms which will impact on their functioning / quality of life and which will need clinical input.

The aims of this workshop are to; (1) describe a transdiagnostic approach to understanding and treating persistent unexplained physical symptoms, and (2) give therapists an opportunity to observe some key skills for intervening with patients experiencing such symptoms in primary and secondary care settings. 

Professor Chalder has worked as a clinician and a researcher in the area of long-term conditions and medically unexplained symptoms for 30 years. Trudie develops specific CBT models to understand and treat symptoms and distress in MUS and uses randomized controlled trials to evaluate the effects of treatment on quality of life in primary and secondary care. Trudie’s work includes treatment for adults and adolescents and she has published over 250 articles. She was BABCP President and is a member of the IAPT advisory group for Long Term Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms.

What is remote therapy?

Remote therapy is any kind of therapy where the therapist and the client are not present in the same physical space. In the past, this has most regularly been over the telephone. However, in recent years, with improvements in online connections, this is increasingly resulting in therapy delivered by online video software.

Sarah offers online therapy using two online solutions. Both have secure end-to-end encryption, are GDPR compliant and are designed with the delivery of telehealth in mind.

The first is called Zoom and you will have seen this in action if you have watched any TV News in the past few days as this is the platform used by the UK Government for their remote press briefings.

The second is called VSee and this platform is used by over 1000 telemedicine companies worldwide as well as being the video platform used by NASA for communicating with the International Space Station.

Both of these platforms have associated apps available from the usual app stores for your devices.

Sarah makes use of both because if one has problems, then it is easy to swiftly change over to the other and to continue with the therapy session. Similarly, Sarah has routers from two different high-speed internet providers to ensure that if one is having problems, it is possible to change over to the other.

If you are looking for therapy during these difficult times, please feel free to make contact with Sarah on 07817 223669 to discuss availability.