Occupational therapists ask “What matters to you?” not “What’s the matter with you?”.

In its simplest terms, occupational therapy or OT is focused on assisting people of all ages to fully participate in the activities (occupations) that they want to do, need to or are expected to do in life.

The focus of occupational therapy services provided here at Providence Wellbeing is assisting people to develop and use the skills they need to lead a satisfying life on their terms at whatever stage of life he or she may be at.

Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) is an evidence-based approach that routinely seeks feedback from clients regarding both the therapeutic alliance (how well client and therapist are working together) and client outcomes (how well the client is doing) during each session. Put simply, Feedback Informed Treatment approaches are used to create a culture of feedback where the therapist adapts the treatment based on the client’s perspective on what helps and what doesn’t.

Feedback Informed Treatment approaches are used at Providence Wellbeing for people accessing Occupational Therapy and mental health care.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a short-term goal-focused evidence-based therapeutic approach which is focused on supporting the person to identify the changes he or she would like to see in life and work towards making these changes happen. Solution-focused brief therapy works to help the person see their situation and capabilities in a different light, it has been shown to effective for a broad range of mental health challenges.

Cognitive behavioural therapy originally developed by American psychiatrist Dr Aaron T. Beck in the 1970's for the treatment of depression.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (often referred to as CBT) is based on the cognitive model, which is, simply that the way we perceive situations influences how we feel emotionally. Cognitive behavioural therapy is practiced by mental health professionals including: psychiatrists; psychologists; occupational therapists; social workers; mental health nurses; and counsellors.

Cognitive behavioural therapy helps people to identify their distressing thoughts and to evaluate how realistic the thoughts are. Then they learn to change their distorted thinking. When they think more realistically, they feel better. The emphasis is also consistently on solving problems and initiating behavioural change.

Since its development as a treatment for depression, cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to be a highly effective treatment for a range of mental health challenges including: anxiety disorders (such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder); substance abuse and addiction recovery; psychosis; post traumatic stress disorder; and personality disorders.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, or DBT, a form of cognitive behaviour therapy, is designed to help people change unhelpful ways of thinking and behaving while also accepting who they are.

It helps you learn to manage your emotions by letting you recognise, experience and accept them. DBT can also help you understand why you might harm yourself or behave in unhelpful ways, so you are more likely to change your behaviour.

CBT-E is the abbreviation for “enhanced cognitive behaviour therapy”, and is one of the most effective treatments for eating disorders. It is a “transdiagnostic” treatment for all forms of eating disorder including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and other similar states​.

When working with people who are not significantly underweight, CBT-E generally involves an initial assessment appointment followed by 20 treatment sessions over 20 weeks, lasting 50-minutes each.

CBT-E isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” treatment. CBT-E is a highly individualised treatment. The therapist creates a specific version of CBT-E to match the exact eating problem of the person receiving treatment.

With people who are underweight, treatment needs to be longer, often involving around 40 sessions over 40 weeks. The first weeks of this treatment carefully considering the reasons for and against this change. The goal in CBT-E is that the person themselves decides to regain weight rather than having this decision imposed upon them. During the final step of weight regain the person becomes accomplished at maintaining their weight.

Specialist Supportive Clinical Management is an evidence-based treatment for Anorexia Nervosa that is focused on supporting the person to collaboratively problem-solve his/her eating disorder behaviours with the view to supporting weight restoration whilst also working collaboratively to address other non eating disorder related difficulties that the person may be facing.

SSCM is typically delivered over a minimum of 20 sessions but may extend to 40 sessions depending on individual circumstances.

SSCM is a flexible treatment that can be greatly beneficial for people who have found other more structured eating treatments to be ineffective.