Psychological services through CMHT?

[GrapePearPea]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any personal experiences? I am on the list but I’m not sure what it actually entails. I think it’s different to the IAPT you self refer too. I am under a community mental health team. I see a psychiatrist for medication and I have a care coordinator. The psychiatrist thinks I will benefit from psychology. Would like to hear anyone’s experiences? What tends to happen at the first appointment and who is it you actually see? Thanks

Anyone?

It is used by some CMHT to refer to psychodynamic psychotherapy. In my opinion "Psychology" is a poor choice of name as it doesn't mean anything (which may be why you have had no replies).

Hi @GrapePearPea

CMHTs usually have in-team psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, and nurses. They might also have other people such as psychotherapists, like the poster above has referenced, or dieticians etc.

I do not know about the poster above but my experience of CMHTs (NHS Scotland) is that "Psychology" is always a Clinical Psychologist or Trainee Clinical Psychologist. I have never seen this refer to psychotherapists.

Your psychiatrist likely thinks you would benefit from some kind of therapy. Psychologists in CMHTs are experienced in many different kinds of therapy (CBT, CFT, ACT, DBT... lots more depending on the difficulty and what suits the patient).

A first appointment would likely be a meeting with a Clinical Psychologist to hear about your difficulties and consider what kind of therapeutic input might help you.

I hope this is helpful, let me know if you would like to know anything else and I will do my best to answer

Sorry, another thing - IAPT tends to have a time/session limit and offer only a small subset of therapies (usually CBT). Clinical Psychology at a CMHT can offer much longer input and a much more varied set of therapies.