If your worry is out-of-proportion, regular and dominates your thoughts, causes you to panic or creates physical discomfort, you could be suffering from an anxiety disorder.
If you’re experiencing depressive symptoms for more than a couple of weeks and they’re affecting your ability to function day-to-day, you may have depression.
OCD involves unwanted thoughts or fears (obsessions) making you do repetitive behaviours (compulsions), and can be very distressing.
Many people who witness or experience a terrifying situation find that their anxiety disappears after a few weeks, but if it persists for longer you may have PTSD.
A specific phobia involves having an extreme, overwhelming and long-lasting fear of a specific object or situation that’s out of proportion with the danger it poses.
If you find yourself regularly lying awake, waking up too early, or feeling shattered even after a full eight hours, it may be time to start looking at your sleep health.
When stress levels are high long term they can impact your health and enjoyment of life, so if you’ve been feeling stressed for more than a few weeks, it may be best to seek help.
It’s natural to have an interest in your treatment. People often want to know what we do, how it works and whether it will work for them. Here’s our take on some of the questions we often come across.
After your therapy sessions have ended, you’ll be able to log in to the ieso platform for 20 years after discharge, allowing you to access all of your sessions, messages and goals to remind yourself of the skills you’ve learnt. If you find yourself feeling worse again or experiencing new difficulties, you can go back and use this information. However, you are welcome to return to therapy if you are still struggling.*
In video therapy, your sessions are retained as an audio file for you to refer to at a later date rather than in text. We do not retain the video.
*Provided you’re still registered with a GP in an area where we’re contracted by the NHS.
Your therapist will help you prepare for ending therapy so that you feel confident to continue developing your CBT skills independently. Towards the end of therapy, you may be asked to lead the sessions more to help build your confidence. During your final session, you will create a plan that works for you and that will maintain your progress and enable you to cope with any setbacks.
Self-help materials like videos or journaling can certainly help treat common mental health problems. However, lots of people find they feel better much quicker with ieso therapy because it’s:
The time it takes from sign-up to first session with a qualified therapist is a maximum of 10 days (although in very busy periods it can take a little longer).
As soon as you’ve been referred or have self-referred to us, you’ll be able to create and activate your ieso account and complete a self-assessment.
We’ll then check we have all the information we need to match you with a therapist, including:
Once we’ve checked your information and are sure this is the right service for you, we’ll assign you a therapist.
(If our service isn’t suitable for you for any reason, we’ll contact you to explain why and give you details of a local service that can help.)
Your therapist will contact you via the website’s messaging system to book your first appointment.
As we’re an online therapy service, the communication you have with your therapist is through written messages on our therapy website.
They’ll send you a message through the therapy website to set up the first appointment rather than calling you. Don’t worry, whenever your therapist messages you or sets up an appointment, you’ll receive a notification email.
Using the email, login to the platform to view the message or appointment. And, if you’re not receiving notifications, check your spam folder.
Our service is free for lots of NHS patients.
It only takes a minute or two to check if you are eligible for treatment.
Social anxiety disorder
With social anxiety disorder, or ‘social phobia’, social interactions for example meeting new people or public speaking, can trigger extreme anxiety, fear, self-consciousness and embarrassment.