Successful CBT for GAD?

[TumbleTunes]

Hello everyone,
I'm just wondering if anyone has had successful CBT therapy for generalised anxiety disorder (I've got health anxiety in there too)?

I've had some CBT on the nhs recently but you only get about 6/7 sessions. It was main my aimed at my agoraphobia, but when the sessions were coming to a close I found that the anxiety had moved back onto health anxiety and the practitioner has referred me for more intense therapy which I'm yet to start.

To be honest I just feel that the CBT didn't really do anything. Doesn't help that the sessions were meant to be about 30mins each week over the phone, but mine were always done in about 5/10 mins with sometimes an email that followed with a fact sheet on.

This time it will be video calls apparently, which is making me a bit nervous already.
Has anyone had the higher intensity CBT and found it helpful? Apparently this one is likely to last around 20 weeks.

Bump

How much time did you spend on it in between sessions?

IAPT CBT is really just directed self help, with the sessions being for them to provide explanations on the evidence base/theory behind CBT, directions for the work to do by yourself over the next week, and a sounding board for anything that comes up.

Which is why they only offer 6 sessions - the goal is either to help someone stabilise a mild problem or to get someone with more moderate problems to the point where they can go off and work on strategies by themselves for a while before re-assessing.

Have you been told what the "intense" version will look like?

Twenty weeks sounds a really positive offering by the way. That usually suggests it will be with someone more qualified and experienced who won't just be giving you homework sheets.

On the videocalls, a tip I had was to reduce the size of the person on your screen (so if it's a laptop move it into a smaller window) so they're less intimidating.

If you're screen-sharing any info that can also make it less intimidating.