Therapies
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi) is the recommended first line treatment for insomnia. It is a CBT based intervention for people experiencing significant insomnia. CBTi is a focused and structured programme specifically for people suffering with insomnia, rather than people who would like to be able to sleep a bit better.
How it works
The aim of CBTi therapy is to learn methods for regulating your sleep pattern so that your body clock adjusts to the times you want to go to sleep and wake up, in line with your daily routine. It does this by improving sleep habits and behaviours, by identifying and challenging thoughts and behaviours that affect a person’s ability to sleep or sleep well.
CBTi is a safe and effective means of managing insomnia and its effects. It is centred around sleep education as a tool to target dysfunctional beliefs/attitudes about sleep. CBTi interventions are effective in the treatment of long-term insomnia, with evidence that it is helpful spanning over 30 years.
What it’s like
CBTi therapy requires you initially to stay up later than your goal bedtime. One of the aims of CBTi is to break the association between being in bed and being awake.
People typically feel more tired in the short term before their body clock adjusts in the longer term. This can be challenging. For this reason, we recommend if you are employed you discuss this with your therapist, so your work is not affected.
Courses
Here at Talking Change, we will be offering CBTi in a range of mediums including on our online platform, Silvercloud, as a structured course and as a part of treatment for other difficulties.
The structured course will run for 6 sessions, followed by a follow up/review session.
For more information around the Silvercloud course, please see this document.
You may like to read some feedback and encouragements by those who received therapy with us.
Other therapies
Read more about the different types of therapy we offer:
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing
Difficulties we treat
If you’re going through a hard time, we want you to know that you’re not alone and good support is now available. We provide talking therapies for all kinds of common mental health difficulties.
Self-help resources
Be sure to check out our useful section of self-help resources for wellbeing.
Employment advice
Alongside therapy our Employment Team can help you find employment or training, and support you with workplace adjustments or disputes.
Make the first step
We know the courage it takes to ask for help, and we hope you’ll consider therapy with us. Read more about what to expect if you refer.
Talking Change is for everyone aged sixteen or over, who live in Portsmouth and are registered with a GP in the city.
You can self-refer by calling us on 0300 123 3934 or by completing this secure form online.
Urgent help
Talking Change is not an emergency mental health service for people in crisis. Support is available from specialist services if urgent help is needed.