Change UP
What is it?
Change UP is a 10 week therapy group for people experiencing anxiety or low mood. This might include difficulties with panic, agoraphobia, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, health anxiety or depression. The group is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and is run by NHS psychologists.
The group usually runs online, and sometimes face to face depending on demand.
The Change UP group is based on materials from the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders with permission from the author David Barlow and colleagues. The aim of the group is to increase understanding of emotional reactions and experiences. The sessions focus on building skills to help people respond to emotions in a healthy way. These skills include mindful emotional awareness, increasing flexibility in thinking patterns, reducing avoidance and changing problematic behaviours driven by emotions.
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What does the group involve?
The content of the group is designed to help you deal with intense or uncomfortable emotional experiences that may be getting in the way of your life. We will invite you to talk in the group but nobody will be put on the spot. The group provides learning through course material and practical tasks to do in the group and at home. We do invite people to talk about common shared difficulties as this helps with our understanding of our difficulties and helps people to see how common their difficulties are. We ask that you only share what you are comfortable with other people knowing.
You will receive a workbook for each session which will be used in the group and you can continue to use these at home afterwards.
Change UP is a closed group, which means that only people who are invited to the group can attend and new people will not join after the second week.
How will this help me?
Course Content
Participants need to be able to commit to attending all of the sessions in order to gain maximum benefit.
Introduction: We can experience emotions as strong, intense and uncomfortable and at times emotions may seem to take over our life. Motivation for change and goal setting are discussed and we consider how this applies for ourselves.
Understanding our emotions: This session explores the role of emotions and the purpose they serve. Emotions can be broken down into thoughts, physical sensations and behaviours and starting to notice this can make them feel less overwhelming. The session looks at how noting the triggers, responses and consequences of emotions can help us understand our emotional experiences.
Mindful emotional awareness: Increased awareness of our emotions as they unfold can be important in how we respond. Learning to objectively and non-judgmentally observe our emotions and our reactions to them is discussed and practised, as well as ways we can anchor ourselves and be in the present moment.
Understanding thoughts: The way we interpret the world around us can influence our emotional experiences. The session looks at how the way we interpret things can be automatic and suggests ways we can practice being more flexible in the way we view things.
Understanding our behaviours: This session looks at automatic behaviours and the tendency to avoid things that cause uncomfortable emotions. This avoidance may provide relief in the short term but tends to make things worse in the long term. The session looks at how some of the behaviours we do when we feel strong emotions can become unhelpful and how taking a different action can help.
Understanding and confronting physical sensations: The role of physical sensations and the way we interpret these as part of our emotional experiences is explored. Ways to begin feeling more comfortable with these physical sensations are discussed and practised.
Facing fears and confronting emotions: The benefit of approaching and confronting uncomfortable emotions is discussed and we look at ways we can do this in day to day life. Participants are assisted in developing a hierarchy of exposure tasks that are relevant to their own difficulties.
Putting it into practice: These sessions focuses on putting the skills learned in previous sessions into practise, including planning and doing exposure tasks at home and within the sessions. This helps us develop new associations and responses to uncomfortable emotional experiences.
Looking to the future: Making changes can be a journey which takes time, and the skills learned can help you continue to make progress and be able to respond in a helpful way to your emotions. This session provides an opportunity to review the skills covered in the group, reflect on your progress and make a plan for moving forward and dealing with setbacks in future.
Is the Change UP group right for me?
If you are interested in attending the Change UP group, you can click below to request an assessment appointment with one of our clinicians. After you have requested an assessment appointment we will look at information to see whether the Change UP group might meet your needs at this time.
The Change UP group is not suitable for everyone.
The Change UP group may be appropriate for you if you:
- have difficulties with anxiety or low mood, including panic, agoraphobia, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder or health anxiety
- are willing to work on these in a group setting
- can put into practice the techniques and exercises, both in group and between sessions
The Change UP group is unlikely to be appropriate for you if you:
- have difficulties which are more severe and longstanding, or if you are concerned about suicidal thoughts and your current safety
- have current difficulties such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorder or addiction problems
- have already had significant input from mental health services
Referral for other Psychology options such as individual input and other groups may be more suitable. This can be discussed with your GP, Mental Health Nurse in the GP practice or other member of Mental Health staff you are seeing. They can discuss options with a Psychologist if needed.
If we feel that the Change UP group is not the best service to meet your needs, we will contact you.
