Starting therapy can be daunting. You’ve taken the step to ask for some support, or someone has noticed you’re having a tough time and found some support for you. But what does therapy actually mean and look like?
Therapy can take lots of different forms. It could be counselling, another talking therapy, a creative therapy like art, drama or music therapy. A psychotherapy like EMDR or a practical therapy such as occupational therapy.
At Cup-O-T we currently offer two types of therapy: EMDR and Occupational Therapy. This blog post will talk a little bit about:
- Who we are
- Where we work
- The therapy woodlands
- The therapy van
- In the community
- What the therapy sessions are like?
- Occupational Therapy
- EMDR Therapy
- Frequently Asked Questions
Who we are:
Cup-O-T: Wellness and Therapy Services was established in 2017, we are a not-for-profit service that provides mental health interventions and wellness sessions to young people, families and communities. We support people to achieve their goals and reach their potential.
Our aims are:
- To make mental health support accessible at an early stage.
- To support young people to achieve their potential.
- To make mental health support accessible in rural areas.
- To increase mental wellness in communities
Where we work
We work across Norfolk and online. We work in partnership with community organisations, schools and youth groups. Sometimes our sessions take place at their locations, or at our therapy woodland or in our therapy van.
Therapy Woodlands
We have a dedicated woodland area near Wymondham, South Norfolk. This space is great for people who prefer to be outside rather than indoors. In the woodland we will use outdoor activities in your therapy sessions to enable you to meet your goals. We have individual therapy sessions here, as well as occupational therapy groups like our Level Up Outside group which is based on Minecraft, and family / community days. We will do a blog post about therapy groups another time!
We have lots of different areas in the woodland:
- Campfire and cooking
- Woodwork and bushcraft
- Covered area – the big green tent
- Composting toilet
- Sensory path
- Yoga space
Therapy Van
We have a therapy van which was designed by young people we work with. It has a sitting area as well as a small kitchen where we can make hot drinks or do cooking activities.
We can come to you at school, work, at home or in a local community location such as a park. We just need to know that there is parking!
Community locations
We can see you at school, at work or at a youth centre/ group that you attend. If your sessions have been arranged by a youth group or school then we will probably see you there – either in one of their rooms or in our therapy van.
What are therapy sessions like?
Starting therapy can be daunting when you don’t know what to expect! So we want to let you know what it will be like. Below is our step-by-step guide to the therapy process.
Top Tip: We recommend that you bring a list of questions or thoughts down with you to your appointment. Sometimes we can forget or find it hard to ask things in the sessions, your list can prompt you, or we can read it.
Occupational Therapy
Occupation’ refers to the things you do day to day. This might be self care activities – getting washed and dressed, the things you HAVE to do like work or education, or things you WANT to do – the stuff you enjoy.
Occupational Therapy supports you to build skills to enable you to complete the activities that you need or want to do. It also helps you to adapt to the activity or environment that you do it in. We will make goals so you can achieve what is most important to you. The goals are made by you and your Occupational Therapist together.
Example: Ben experiences worry and panic and is finding going to school difficult. School is an activity he has to do and he wants to be able to go. Ben also enjoys singing and wants to join a choir. Ben is feeling too worried to go to school or join a choir. The Occupational Therapist works with Ben to achieve his goals one step at a time by creating a personalised plan with him.
This focused on activities and strategies to feel less nervous to use in class and at home. They also made a routine to manage time before and during school as this was the most difficult part of the day. This made doing the activities feel more possible for Ben.
The Occupational Therapist adapted the environment to enable him to physically do the activities by agreeing with the school and club about where Ben can be sat, being able to leave the class and having spaces available to him when he needed them the most.
Occupational therapy sessions will include activities that you enjoy to build on the skills you already have. We might use board games to build concentration, drawing/making to build planning skills and coordination, and physical games to build communication skills and manage emotions.
Occupational therapy can help you to build the skills and confidence to add meaning to your life. It can enable you to look after yourself, and your home, attend school or work, volunteer and meet people, and have fun. We might do this in individual sessions or in group occupational therapy sessions where we work on projects together, to achieve our own goals.
This video explains occupational therapy and mental health (adults):
EMDR Therapy
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is an advanced psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. It is recommended by the UK’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. EMDR can also be used to overcome low self-esteem, anxiety, reoccurring depression and other conditions by processing memories that have contributed to the negative sense of self you have today.
We currently offer EMDR Therapy to people from age 7 and adults.
Videos to explain EMDR to children and young people:
Frequently Asked Questions
How many sessions will I have and how long are they?
You may have a set number of sessions that have been agreed. This may be between 8-12 sessions. We will let you know how many sessions you have in the first appointment. Most sessions are 60 minutes long. However sometimes we need a longer session depending on the activity we are doing in therapy.
Who decides what the goals are?
You do! We will talk about different areas of your life and work out which bits are important to you that you would like to see changes in. We will set short-term goals, and think about long-term goals too. We may get information from parents/carers and school to help us support you to reach these goals.
Example of goals: I want to be able to share my ideas in class. I want to be able to concentrate for longer when I am doing homework. I want to feel confident to get a bus by myself. I want to be able to understand how I am feeling and let others know how to support me.
Who do you share information with?
Conversations in the therapy session will stay confidential between you and your therapist. The only time a therapist would need to speak to someone else would be if they were concerned about you and needed to share this for your safety.
We would need to share with your parent/carer if you were thinking of harming yourself or someone else or if someone was hurting you. We would let you know that we need to talk to your parent/carer first and work out with you how best to do this.
If you have any additional questions about therapy sessions or things you think people would find helpful to know before their first session, please write them in the comments below!
