Collaborative Minds 
Psychotherapy


 

With around 25 years of experience working in mental health, Melissa has gained a vast wealth of knowledge and expertise in treating a broad range of complex mental health difficulties. Alongside her skills it is clear that Melissa's passion lies not only in treating but building up a therapeutic rapport, supporting, coaching and empowering her clients to reach their goals. Melissa has worked in a number of roles in her 20 year career in the NHS and decided to expand her wings creating UK wide psychotherapy and coaching business; Collaborative Minds Psychotherapy Ltd (est.2021). 

Melissa is no stranger to therapy having had her own lived experience of being on the other side several times throughout her adult life. She appreciates how apprehensive you may feel, not only about choosing the right therapist but about remote therapy.  The pandemic in 2020 proved that delivering therapy remotely can be just as effective in treating a broad range of complex mental health difficulties as face to face therapy. Remote sessions allow some anonymity for those who feel nervous about meeting new people, or simply as a more convenient method when life is full of time consuming demands. Like everything else, it becomes easier the more often you do it!

Having the option of attending sessions remotely in the privacy and comfort of your home (or in the office in your lunch hour if that's what works for you!) can help reduce the stress of trying to find extra time to travel to and from appointments.

Difficulties with our mental health on any scale can impact our day to day functioning and quality of life. We tend to think that pushing our thoughts to the side will get rid of them but sadly they don't tend to disappear and resurface when we are faced with any level of stress.

Melissa believes that working collaboratively you will together discover the onset of your difficulties, identify and understand triggers, make sense of what is maintaining the symptoms and most importantly learn strategies to manage your them. Melissa firmly believes that having a really clear understanding of the formulation is key in you being able to achieve long term sustainable improvement. When therapy comes to a natural end Melissa will work with you to develop a robust relapse plan or therapy blueprint to ensure you are in the best place possible to manage any challenges you may be faced with in the future. 

You may be using unhelpful ways of coping with distress and difficult emotions, for example, avoidance, or using alcohol or comfort food and are unsure how to break free from this vicious cycle. 

Together a formulation will be developed so you can start to understand how you operate and learn helpful and healthier coping strategies. 

Melissa strongly believes that the therapeutic alliance created from the onset will be the foundation of the therapeutic journey.

Melissa takes pride in having a natural ability to quickly establish a positive rapport with her clients making them feel valued, validated, listened to and respected. See what Melissa's clients say in the testimonials section.