Kalhar Therapy provides face-to-face and online therapy to individuals experiencing common mental health problems. These can include a range of difficulties, some of which are indicated below.
What problems can you help with?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Social Anxiety Disorder
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)
Agoraphobia
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Living with Chronic Health Conditions
Depression
General Anxiety
Phobias
Panic Disorder
Health Anxiety
Low Self-Esteem
To access the service you need to be aged 18 years or over and be registered with a GP in the UK.
The service is unable to provide support for severe mental health conditions (including but not limited to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders) or to individuals experiencing active suicidal and self-harm intentions or substance use problems. If you are experiencing any of these difficulties, it is strongly recommended that you speak to your GP and seek specialist care.
The main therapeutic approaches used are either Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR).
Additional strategies based on compassion focused therapy, mindfulness, acceptance commitment therapy and motivational interviewing techniques, may also sometimes be used.
When people traditionally think of therapy, the counselling approach may come to mind. This consists of the therapist and client reflecting on the client’s present and past experiences in an exploratory and unstructured way, to help the client gain a deeper understanding of underlying issues. Counselling can be long-term and open ended, often lasting several months to years.
In contrast, CBT and EMDR are very different in their approach. Learn more about both below.
What type of therapy do you offer?
CBT helps you to identify 1) negative thoughts 2) feelings 3) behaviours and 4) physical symptoms that are maintaining your difficulties.
It is believed that these four areas are interconnected and we can get trapped in negative vicious cycles leading to the development and maintenance of psychological problems.
CBT teaches you practical skills and strategies to break these negative patterns and to develop more helpful ones. The idea is to help you become your own therapist. Committing time to the practice of the strategies between therapy sessions is an important part of the therapy.
CBT is a present focused therapy. It does acknowledge the impact of the past but deals with the problems in the here and now. It is also a structured therapy whereby time is spent in the session actively engaging in exercises and techniques. It is a time limited therapy with a course of treatment usually lasting between 6 and 20 sessions.
CBT is recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Psychological Society. It has been significantly researched and shown to be effective with a range of problems including those listed above.
What is CBT?
EMDR is commonly used in the treatment of traumatic experiences. It works on the basis that when trauma occurs, the brain becomes overwhelmed and unable to process the experience as it normally would. This results in the experience, which can include negative images, emotions, beliefs and bodily sensations, becoming ‘stuck’. The effects of this can include experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, such as intrusive memories and flashbacks of the traumatic event, which can be very distressing.
EMDR works by helping the brain to process the stuck experience. The aim is to be able to experience memory of the event without distress. The technique used in EMDR is bilateral stimulation, which works on a similar principle to what the brain does during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. A course of treatment is typically 8 to 12 sessions, but can be more if there have been multiple trauma events experienced.
EMDR therapy is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.