Emma Baker
Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist (CBT)
Emma is a qualified, accredited Cognitive Behavioral Therapist with the British Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP). She has worked as a CBT Therapist for the NHS since 2012. She is also a qualified Occupational Therapist (Since 2000) registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
Professional Experience and Values:
Emma has over 20 years’ NHS experience in mental health working with adults and adolescents in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings. She has worked with clients with mild to moderate and severe and enduring mental health problems. Due to her varied clinical experience she has developed a very holistic, client centered approach enabling her to adapt to working with clients’ individual needs, goals and preferences.
Her central values include empathy, compassion and collaboration from non -judgmental stance. She believes that as humans we all have times that we struggle and experience distress. She is often quoted saying that this is the human condition and experience. However, sometimes these experiences become more pervasive, less transitory and start to impact how we are able to function in our day to day life. She states that this is not our choice or our fault if this happens. She believes humans as inherently social beings are not designed to cope with this alone. The human race survives and thrives best with support from others. This is where she thinks therapy can play an important role.
Her background as an Occupational Therapist enhances her CBT skills with a focus on how difficulties can impact on how people are able to function in their daily lives and places value on the importance of meaningful activities and occupation to enhance wellbeing.
She works with individuals to understand and make sense and of what has led them to where they are now and get a shared vision of their goals. Then gradually guides with therapeutic tools and techniques towards making changes to positively impact on wellbeing. She believes that her role as a therapist is a privilege and states that she is often been humbled by clients’ stories, resilience and tenacity in the face of challenging times.
Emma specialises in the treatment of:
Anxiety - Stress
Anxiety - Agoraphobia
Anxiety - Health
Panic / Panic Attacks
Depression - Low Mood
Anger
Anxiety - Generalised (GAD)
Anxiety - Performance
Anxiety - Separation
Anxiety - Phobias
Depression - Major
Perinatal Anxiety
Perinatal Depression
Emotional Regulation
Low Self-Esteem
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Perfectionism
Trauma - Road Traffic Accidents
Emma is highly experienced in all evidence based practices for all the listed disorders, including exposure response prevention (ERP) for the treatment of OCD.
Therapeutic models & approaches Emma is trained to use:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
BABCP Accredited CBT Therapist
Mindfulness based CBT
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
Comprehend, Cope and Connect (for complex trauma)
Exposure Response Prevention (ERP)
Person-centred therapy
Qualifications & Training:
Post Graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety and Depression (PG Dip): Southampton University 2012-2013.
BABCP Accredited CBT Therapist
BSc (Hons) Psychosocial Interventions for Psychosis: University of Bournemouth 2009.
BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy: Southampton University 2000.
Emma has undertaken further training for 3rd wave CBT approaches including Mindfulness based CBT, Compassion Focused Therapy, and Comprehend, Cope and Connect (for complex trauma) as well as Solution focused brief therapy. She is able to integrate these into her practice flexibly and tailor therapy to individuals’ needs.
What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an evidenced based & well researched talking therapy. It is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for many mental health problems.
It is most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression, but can be useful for many other mental and physical health problems.
CBT focuses upon how your thoughts and behaviours impact upon your emotions and physical symptoms.
CBT is collaborative treatment and typically involves doing homework tasks between appointments.
It aims to teach you to become your own therapist, teaching you tools so you can keep using the strategies and techniques you have learned after you have finished therapy.