Richard Mathews

I am a psychotherapist who has over 25 years experience in working in NHS Clinical Psychology Services. I specialise in Schema Therapy, a third wave evidence based psychotherapy for complex and entrenched difficulties for which other talking treatments and medications have been not been helpful in ameliorating.

How Schema Therapy Can Help

Therapy can help in all manner of ways, but perhaps key is having a safe, non-judgemental relationship in which you feel free to explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours in a safe space totally focused upon you and your needs. This allows you to be heard and allows you to be fully yourself and to reflect upon your self and your relationships. This alliance is shown by research to be one of the key ingredients as to why therapy helps promote meaningful change and recovery. The relationship with the therapist can then serve as a blueprint for your current and future relationships.

As a Schema Therapist I bring a flexible and adaptable approach to the therapeutic relationship in order to meet your needs.

Often if our needs were not met in childhood, life patterns, sometimes called life traps or schemas, can develop in which we can unconsciously repeat the associated patterns in our current life. It is these patterns that are noted in the relationship with your schema therapist and through the therapeutic relationship there is an opportunity to get your needs met in healthier ways to develop healthier new ways of relating to yourself and others.

Feeling safe is key to feeling able to fully engage with a therapist. By holding and maintaining boundaries and having clear limits the therapist can help you feel safe to explore the themes that are troubling you. An example would be ensuring holding consistent time frames and boundaries in the sessions. Additionally a schema therapist highlights schema driven ways of acting both in the therapy and outside of the session. 

So why Schema Therapy?

Schema Therapy brings together the  best of all the other key therapy approaches. It brings the warmth of Person Centred Counselling, the cutting edge of CBT, the past in the present understanding of Psychodynamic Therapy, the emotion focused approach of experiential therapies like Gestalt, the trauma informed effectiveness of EMDR, the focus and specificity of Behaviour Therapy and the 'in the moment' essence of the Third Wave Therapies like ACT, Mindfulness and DBT .

Schema therapy can help you understand not just how your thinking, feeling and behavioural patterns impact upon you, but also how you have developed these patterns and what keeps them going. Most importantly though it is a highly effective and powerful way to change these old patterns by addressing the past origins by helping you process any past trauma and developed new and healthier perspectives of yourself.

Schema Therapy has been tested against a range of other therapies and is as effective or superior to these other approaches that it has been compared to for a range of conditions.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51790248_A_Systematic_Review_of_the_Evidence_Base_for_Schema_Therapy

If you have been struggling with difficult emotions and life patterns  that seem to crop up time and time again in your life and in your relationships with others  then Schema Therapy is likely to be a very good fit for you.

Testing the Waters

Choosing the right therapist is key to helping you achieve the change you are seeking. Having an initial meeting is an opportunity to see if you feel that I am the right person to work with you. It is also an opportunity to discuss if your needs are best met by the approaches I offer and if not to discuss alternatives. 

If you decide that you would like to begin therapy with me I would work closely with you to build rapport  and develop a joint understanding of your difficulties before developing a bespoke approach tailored to meet your needs and address your difficulties. 

Other Approaches

Schema Therapy has lots of advantages but other therapies can be equally effective in helping address your needs depending on what they are. If other types of therapy are better suited to your needs I can provide you with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for a range of difficulties including depression, anxiety based difficulties like OCD, Social Anxiety and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I am fully trained in Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing an approach with is which. quick and effective treatment for trauma as well as Third Wave approaches including DBT and ACT.

• Individual Schema Therapy - £95.00 per hour
• EMDR and CBT - £95.00 per hour 
• Clinical Supervision in Schema Therapy £100.00 per hour
• Clinical Supervision for Schema Therapy Certification £110.00 per hour

Attempting to find a counsellor, psychologist or therapist can be a confusing and time consuming process at a time when distress and change is making life so difficult.  

Many therapies emphasise similar ideas but use different terminology to explain the same principles. Throughout my time working as a psychological practitioner I have sought to understand the similarities between the different types of therapies and develop expertise in an approach which coherently lends from each of these approaches to offer an effective and evidenced based therapy which offers both flexibility and a structure to address and resolve life long problems. Whilst I will use other approaches if they are the best approach to address particular difficulties, Schema Therapy is my preferred approach. This is particularly helpful approach if your difficulties have been longstanding and you find yourself experiencing repeated patterns which cause you great distress or difficulties in life. Schema Therapy is a new form of psychological therapy which has been researched extensively and it is shown to be superior to other many of the other psychological approaches for long standing difficulties including early life trauma  and for personality difficulties such as borderline personality. It is, like any good therapy, based on the relationship and that connection between your therapist and you is crucial for anything else that follows. I have trained extensively in this approach and have achieved the highest level of international certification and also run a certified Schema Therapy training programme training psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors and therapists around the world in the approach. www.schematherapysystems.com.

I have worked both in short term problem focused ways lasting only 6 sessions and in long term therapy lasting a number of years depending on the need of the individual. I am comfortable and competent in working in both timeframes. 

As such you an be assured of the highest standard of personal therapy which is tailored to address and meet your needs and which is going to make a lasting difference.

If you wish to discuss your needs and if you think the approaches I offer could be helpful I would be happy to discuss this with you in an initial 30 minute meeting.