There are lots of different types of talking therapy. Each one aims to help you come to terms with your feelings and experiences. Your healthcare team might recommend one or more types of talking therapy, depending on your needs.

“At the start of talk therapy, I was paranoid to the point where I was having difficulty speaking even the shortest of sentences, and now, I work in telephone customer service.” 3

Common types of talking therapy include:

CBT is used to help people with all sorts of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, schizophrenia and more.7

Our minds and bodies are very closely connected. Ancient practices like religious meditation and yoga have been used for millennia to help people feel more balanced and calm. But in recent times, we’ve seen this kind of approach become part of mainstream medicine, supported with scientific studies and biological knowledge.8

CBT is based on being mindful. This means that you notice where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re experiencing and what you’re feeling, without reacting to those things. 10 CBT helps you look at your thoughts and feelings from a mental distance. This helps you not get too wrapped up in your thoughts. It’s like the difference between getting really involved in a film you are watching, and realising it’s just a film.

By becoming more aware of your thoughts, you can then use CBT to challenge your thoughts. To test your thoughts to see if they really are true, or accurate, or helpful.

By thinking differently, you can then act differently. This can help you get out of patterns of unhelpful behaviour (like avoiding people, drinking too much, or self-harming). 11

When we have a negative thought, it’s all too easy to get caught up with that thought, and start going down a dark path. The more often you do that, the more automatic that train of thought will be. And the faster you will come to a negative conclusion, like “I am worthless”, “Everyone hates me” or “My mind isn’t my own”. Thoughts like this make us feel bad – sometimes that’s experienced as sadness, sometimes anger, sometimes a whole range of emotions. And as our bodies and minds are so closely connected, having strong emotions like this has a physical effect on us, and we can get signs of stress such as…12

• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Muscle tension
• Pain
• Stomach upsets
• Chest pains
• Fast heartbeat
• Sexual dysfunction

To get relief from these uncomfortable mental and/or physical feelings, it’s tempting to fall back on unhelpful behaviours that make us feel a bit better in the short term. But in the long-term, these things don’t make us feel any better, and can keep us locked into this self-destructive cycle.13 With CBT, you can work to break this cycle.

CBT helps us:

CHALLENGE unhelpful thoughts – “Is this true? Realistic? Likely? Helpful?”

STOP automatic thoughts – “I don’t have to go down this route every time, I can choose not to follow this train of thought”

ACCEPT difficult feelings – “This will pass. It is not nice, but it is not forever. It does not define me.”

CALM us and let go of stress – “It’s OK. I can take time to breathe and collect myself.”

CHANGE our behaviour – “Today I choose to feel better by taking some exercise, and chatting online to a friend.”

Counselling is when you talk to a trained counsellor about your problems. It’s a chance for you to get things off your chest. Some counselling is one-on-one, so it’s just you and your therapist alone in a room together. Sometimes, you might be invited to group therapy, where a number of people who are experiencing similar things get together regularly to talk about their feelings and share their thoughts with one another.

There are different types of counselling or talking therapy. Exactly what happens in your therapy sessions will depend on a lot of different factors such as:

• What kind of healthcare professional is running the session (e.g. a psychotherapist is different to a counsellor)
• What techniques and theories the therapist uses
• What your aims are for therapy

“The most difficult facet of having a psychological issue is knowing there is something within your subconscious which frightens or bothers you but being unable to identify it. One of my therapist’s most essential functions has been helping me identify the issues affecting me because when we have identified issues they have been easy to eliminate.” 3

We’re all just humans – we can’t like everybody we meet, and not everybody we meet will like us. Sometimes two people just don’t seem to get on. That happens with therapists too. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable talking to your therapist.14 If you’ve had several sessions and still don’t feel at ease with your therapist, you can:

• Tell your therapist directly. They might be able to suggest ways to help you feel more comfortable, or suggest a different therapist who could help you instead
• Asking the healthcare service if there’s another therapist or kind of therapy you could try

Don’t worry about hurting your therapist’s feelings. They are well trained professionals who deal with this kind of thing all the time – they won’t take it personally.

Your family are a massively important part of your recovery.15 That’s why it’s often recommended that you all get together for guided family therapy sessions.

This might include family you live with, your partner, or any close relative you see often.

The symptoms of schizophrenia can have a major effect on people around you.15 Family therapy can help everyone affected to express their thoughts and feelings, and work together to find ways to live together more peacefully.

The aim of family therapy is for everyone to feel able to talk about their feelings, to find ways to help one another, and to support the person with schizophrenia symptoms to stay well.15 Things you might talk about in a family meeting might include: 16

LEARNING about schizophrenia to understand it better, including symptoms, treatments and support

TALKING about thoughts and feelings

THINKING of ways to solve problems constructively

PROCESSING feelings so they can be expressed truthfully but sensitively