What is the difference between Counselling for Depression and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

Here at TALKWORKS, our clinicians are here to help you feel better and get back to feeling yourself again. We offer a wide choice of treatment options, including both Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Counselling for Depression (CfD). Our therapists will work with you to establish a form of therapy that’s right for you, to help get you back on track. Below, we explore both treatment options and highlight the support that TALKWORKS can offer you if you are finding things hard.

What is Counselling for Depression?

A  Counselling for Depression (CfD) session looks at a person’s experience of distress as they see it from their perspective, and how it has impacted them internally. It will help you to reflect on how you are feeling, working with you to identify feelings and emotions, that may feel stuck or unprocessed in some way.  You might identify or connect with the idea that you feel differently on the inside to how you present yourself on the outside.  This feeling can be called “dissonance” and can contribute to feelings of depression. The sessions offer an opportunity for you to reflect on and explore your feelings and emotions; supporting you to find new ways of connecting with your feelings as well as the feelings of those around you.

Our TALKWORKS Counsellors won’t provide solutions or advice, but we will help to facilitate your understanding of what can help you to move forward in a more positive and healthy way. The counsellor will work with you to find a focus for the counselling, helping you to notice and identify themes and patterns in the experiences that you share that are contributing to your loss of happiness and low mood. Our Counselling for Depression is a form of therapy that focuses on the present day, but it may be that events from the past are explored, as these could be impacting your mental health and wellbeing.

How does it work?

Being overly critical of ourselves, feeling we are worthless and being left with unresolved feelings from difficult relationships, can make us feel low and depressed. Counselling for Depression aims to help you get in touch with the feelings underlying your depression. We encourage you to express these, make sense of them and develop new ways of looking at yourself and the world around you. This is achieved by focusing on how you feel and understanding your situation from your point of view. Counselling sessions will often involve you taking the lead, because our counsellors want to understand how you see and feel about things, rather than asking lots of questions.

What about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a form of talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by changing the way you think and behave. Here at TALKWORKS, our Clinicians can use CBT to support you in a number of different ways to help you feel better and more like yourself again. Rather than looking into your past, we’ll help you to understand your current thoughts and feelings by breaking them down into more manageable chunks. We’ll then work with you to help restructure unhelpful thoughts and behaviours, so that you can set yourself goals and get back on track.

We can offer CBT in a number of different ways, including in one-to-one sessions with a therapist, in group wellbeing workshops or online via self-help programme Silvercloud. The overall aim of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is for you to learn how to apply the skills you have developed during treatment, to different aspects of your everyday life.

How do I access treatment and support?

The first step you can take to getting back on track is by referring yourself to TALKWORKS, either online via our website, or over the phone by calling 0300 555 3344. You do not need to see a GP to access our services.

Here at TALKWORKS, we can carry out therapy in a way that suits you. We offer flexible appointments and treatment options, with early morning and evening sessions available. We can do this face to face (limited availability), online via a video call, or over the phone. We know that when you’re busy it can be hard to prioritise yourself, which is why we have made our appointment options as flexible as possible. As part of the NHS, all of our treatment and support is available free of charge to anyone over the age of 18, living in Devon (excluding Plymouth, where you can access Plymouth Options).

If you are finding things hard or are in need of some additional support, please don’t wait until you hit ‘rock bottom.’ TALKWORKS is here for you – you are not alone in this.