CBT Therapy in Cheshire
Expert Anxiety Therapist delivering CBT Therapy in Cheshire and Online Therapy across Cheshire and throughout the UK
The Straight-talking CBT Therapist for Busy Professionals
Hi, I’m Hannah, and I’m a CBT Therapist in Cheshire. An Expert in helping Busy Professionals Overcome Anxiety and Stress using a Straight-Talking Therapy approach. No fluff, just insight and solutions. Offering CBT Therapy appointments in Middlewich in Cheshire, or Online Therapy across the UK and Internationally.
What is CBT?
What’s great about CBT Therapy is that it is packed full of logic, of theories that are simple and make sense, and of explanations that we can get – it’s why I love it so much. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a collection of lots of different tools and techniques, which means that your CBT Treatment can be personalised to you, your difficulties, and your goals to make sure you get what you need.
At its essence, CBT Therapy focuses on rewiring the way we think and the way we respond. Doing this then successfully leads to shifts in your emotional state, and an elimination of the physical manifestation symptoms of how you’ve been feeling.
The goal of most client’s when they start therapy is the same – to feel better and to no longer have their day-to-day life ruled by anxiety, and CBT Therapy can do just that.
Ready to get started?
Why Choose CBT Therapy with me?
If you’re on the hunt for a CBT Therapist, it’s a fair question to ask why you should choose me. Do you recognise yourself in these words – Burnt-out, Stressed, Anxious, Over-thinker, Perfectionist, People-pleaser, Lacking confidence? These are the exact problems I work on day in day out, and have been for years now. I’m here to help those with High Functioning Anxiety discover a new way to live life.
I’m known as the Straight-Talking Therapist. This means that if you’re not figuring it out for yourself, I’m happy to tell you what I think is going on. I can help you to join the dots together. So if you’ve already read the self-books, seen a coach, attended online seminars set, and still feel none the wiser, maybe it’s time you booked in with me to actually get to the answers.
I’m here to help you get to the root of the problem. To understand why you do the things that you know are unhelpful – the double checking, the procrastinating, the not letting go of control, pushing people away – and find a new way of coping that actually works! At the end of a course of treatment, you’ll leave sessions with a personalised guide that you can keep referring back to, making sure that the progress continues beyond our sessions.
Want to find out more?
CBT Therapy for Business Owners & Busy Professionals
Most of my clients would describe themselves as chronic overthinkers. Success as Corporate Professionals and Creatives requires huge brain capacity – the ability to think things through, to problem solve, to analyse, to be 10 steps ahead, to be in control. These are all excellent traits that likely have served you well. But when Anxiety, Stress or Depression turn up to the party, those strengths are now your biggest enemy. Instead of being useful, they are now getting you into a nasty hole.
Private CBT is a perfect solution to this situation. It teaches you:
- How to dial the noise of your thoughts down
- How to stop being pulled into hypothetical worry scenarios
- How to shut up that pesty self-critical/imposter syndrome voice
- How to let go of control and tolerate uncertainty
- How to prioritise, delegate, and overcome procrastination
- How to put in effective boundaries
- How to improve efficiency and stop the excessive research or checking
- How to stop being led by emotions such as fear, guilt or shame and so much more!
Once you’ve completed your CBT Therapy, you’ll feel more like the real you, be able to connect better with your logical thinking, and be able to engage in your work and personal life from a relaxed and calm position. Who wouldn’t want that right?
Want to read more about how Private CBT can help you?
Read my CBT Case Studies of how Therapy for Business Owners and Busy Professionals with me really works.
CBT Therapy for High Functioning Anxiety
High functioning Anxiety is a hidden problem. It’s not that you can’t function at all, you’re still getting up every day, going to work, engaging with life, but it feels overwhelming and exhausting. And you’re not the only one.
High functioning Anxiety and Burnout are this generations mental health challenges. Whilst it’s great that we have more freedom of choice than previous generations and more access to opportunities, the downside is that we are all trying to do too much. We are expecting ourselves to flourish at work, to put time and effort into maintaining healthy relationships, to be engaged and present parents, to look after ourselves with what we eat and the exercise we do, to engage in hobbies and me time, to keep up with the Jones’s with the house, garden, car and holidays. It’s a lot right? Not really surprising that we have lots of Burnout happening. And when we don’t ‘succeed’ we are our own worst critic.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy looks at both how we are living our life and the adjustments we might need to make, as well as exploring our attitudes about ourselves and how we deal with our internal thoughts. CBT Therapy techniques include challenging our Core Beliefs – e.g. I’m not good enough, I’m a failure, as well as Cognitive Restructuring or Cognitive Reframing tools for all the little thoughts day to day that bring us down or make us stressed-out.
CBT Therapy for Work Stress
Work stress and how it manifests is unique to you. Your work stress could be drive by worrying excessively, resulting in lots of trying to control/plan/check everything, and ending up stressed by all the extra work and time this creates. Or perhaps your Work Stress is driven by People pleasing and your inability to say no, overpromising driven by guilt, and taking on more responsibility than is within your remit.
For some their Work Stress is created from their imposter syndrome or not feeling good enough, meaning you have constantly moving goal posts, never celebrate your wins, and are forever pushing yourself to do more to prove yourself. For others it’s being stuck in the perfectionism and procrastination loop, setting yourself impossibly high standards, then getting overwhelmed and end up in avoidance mode.
Work stress is multi-faceted. But the good news is that all the problems listed above (and more) can be effectively tackled using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I’ve been working with stressed out professionals for over 10 years now – CEOs, Senior Leaders, Doctors, Lawyers, Creatives, Sportsmen/women and many more – CBT Therapy, and particularly my straight-talking approach to it, really works for exactly these types of high performing individuals. Within the CBT Therapy treasure trove of strategies, there’s something that will help most Anxious Professionals.
CBT for Low Self Esteem
Lots of successful business owners and people in high achieving jobs struggle with self-confidence. The reality is that the more we succeed, often the more Imposter Syndrome raises it’s ugly head, the opposite of what you might expect. For most their low self-esteem has a long history – difficulties caused by overly critical parents, or by bullying at school, or by high expectations placed on you by others.
It's impact in a workplace can be significant. The self-doubt can cause entrepreneurs to get in their own way of progress and making necessary decisions which ultimately impinge the growth and profitability of your business. It can impact your communication at work – with customers, juniors and seniors. Low-self esteem can be a contributing factor of poor boundary setting, and massive overcompensation.
Private CBT Therapy can help you to look at the way you think about yourself, the way you speak to yourself, and the ripple effect this has not just in your work life but your personal life too.
Read more about CBT for Self esteem here
CBT for phobias
Phobias can be crippling. Being stuck in fear mode is incredibly frustrating, especially when you know it’s irrational, but you don’t know how to stop. Naturally when something makes us anxious we want to take steps to control the situation so it’s less anxiety provoking, or to avoid it completely. Makes sense right, who wants to feel fear?
But the problem with this approach is that it feeds the very fear that you want to overcome. Whether you have Claustrophobia, Agoraphobia, Social Phobia, a fear of heights, needles, spiders, public speaking or something else, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Phobias is highly effective.
Read more about therapy for phobias here.
CBT Therapist Cheshire
I have had a full time Therapy room in Middlewich Cheshire since 2019.
It doesn’t look like a medical room, instead it’s set up more like a cosy lounge, with a rug, bookcase, sofas – basically the perfect environment to help you relax and feel comfortable, particularly important for those who are newbies to therapy or find talking about their emotions challenging.
It’s contained within a discreet Business centre just outside of town with it’s own carpark and within easy reach of Sandbach, Holmes Chapel, Knutsford, Northwich and Altrincham.
See more about my therapy room here.
Online CBT
I’ve been running my own business locally since 2017. When I first started, most of my clients would see me in person. However, the increased use of video for communication in recent years has really shifted this balance, I now have over 50% of my clients accessing Private CBT Online. Whether your CBT sessions are in person or online, you are still receiving face-to-face Therapy. Online CBT has the benefit of being able to choose a Private Therapist that’s the right fit for you without the barrier of geography, as well as it being easier to make time for without needing to add in travel time. I work with clients across the UK, and internationally (excluding USA & Canada) as a result. Some extra benefits for Online Therapy with me include permission to record your sessions for personal use to watch back, and permission to use an AI notetaker to give you summary notes – something I introduced following requests from Business Owners I work with. I also make use of the chat box to send you notes, and of the whiteboard to draw out illustrations of concepts we are working with.
Key elements of CBT Therapy
So lets get into a bit more of the nitty gritty of CBT Therapy, to understand what exactly it is and its history. CBT Therapy expands into Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies. As I said before, it’s a collection of theories and strategies, and it’s split into 2 parts – the Cognitive Therapies and the Behavioural Therapies.
Behavioural Therapy has its roots back to the early 1900s, and brings in teachings from the likes of Pavlov. You’ve probably heard of Pavlov and his dog, he introduced Psychologists to concepts of classical conditioning – effectively how do we end up responding the way we do to triggers – something we still use in CBT Therapy today.
Cognitive Therapy has Aaron Beck as it’s Godfather, dating back to the 1960s and 70s. He discovered that we have more layers of thoughts that originally thought, and he began the valuable work of understanding how we can change the way we think.
The CBT Therapy world continues to grow in new theories and learning all the time. As a result, every CBT Therapist has a treasure trove of concepts and strategies to turn to.
What to expect from CBT Therapy
The start of the Therapy journey is always the assessment. This is mainly completed in the 1st appointment, but as therapists we continue to gather information every time we see you to keep enhancing our understanding of what the problem is, why, and how we can fix it.
CBT Treatment sessions involve a combination of us playing Columbo asking you questions, of explaining theories to help you make better sense of what’s going on for you, and teaching you scientifically proven techniques to re-wire how you think and respond.
In my experience, most clients learn best from visual illustrations, or through analogies that are easy to remember. So CBT Therapy concepts with me won’t be dry and boring, they’ll be taught to you in a creative way that you can engage with. Therapy should be an interesting and fun learning experience after all (alongside some of the deeper dive sessions that can sometimes feel heavier).
CBT Therapy also requires lots of practice of the techniques taught in session, so you’ll often leave the session with bits of tasks or homework to complete. I highly recommend client’s have a notebook or tablet with them for every session too for recording those nuggets of knowledge.
By the end of your Private CBT Therapy with me, you’ll have a personalised toolkit of resources to consult and refer back to. You’ll have insight of what your difficulties are and why. You’ll know the unhelpful traps you are at risk of falling into and know a different way to cope. Most importantly you’ll no longer be struggling to cope. Thrive not just survive.
Ready to get started?
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Why Pay for Private CBT Therapy?
Whether it’s help with worry or overthinking, with perfectionism or imposter syndrome, with being a workaholic or with unhelpful relationship patterns, seeing a Private CBT Therapist could make a significant difference to their enjoyment of life.
Each Private Therapist will have different special interests and special skills. I’m known as ‘The Straight-Talking Therapist’ as that’s one of my special skills, and it helps me get to the root of the problem with my clients faster. I am a born empath, so also offer a lot of emotional support. Clients come to me because they want answers, they want to make changes, but they currently feel stuck. CBT Therapy is a really good fit alongside my straight-talking approach, as it’s a very proactive type of therapy.
Paying for your own therapy isn’t cheap, but what it does allow you to do is choose the person you connect to and who is an expert in your exact problem. When you get that match right, it just clicks, and it can really help to make the therapy journey enjoyable. It also allows you speedy access to therapy at the point that you need it, without any excessive waits.
Find a Private CBT Therapist
If you’re looking for CBT Therapy, I’d recommend finding a Private CBT Therapist who is Accredited. You can check if a Therapist is Accredited by searching with their surname here: CBT Search Results (babcp.com). I have been Accredited since 2015.
This helps to ensure that your Cognitive Behavioural Therapist has trained at a high level, and is part of a professional body, and ensures you keep away from those who might only have completed an online CBT course lasting a couple of days.
CBT Therapy or Business Coaching
Many of my clients are Business Owners, Senior Execs, or in demanding professions. As a result, I often get asked about why they should choose Private CBT Therapy over Business Coaching or Life Coaching. Of course each has its place, and we do have some crossover.
If the primary focus is your business and not your emotional health, Business Coaching would be best. If you’re already in a good place but want to learn to be your best self, Life Coaching is a perfect choice. However if you’ve had anxiety impacting you for many years, and gradually getting worse, and impacting every area of your life, Psychotherapy is the best choice.
The advantage of working with me is I specialise in Therapy for Business owners and Corporate Counselling, so I’m experienced at helping clients not just with their wellbeing but also their business. Private CBT Therapy fees also give a great return on investment, as well as costs that are affordable for Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs.
Want to read more about how CBT therapy can help you?
Read my CBT Case Study examples of how Therapy for Business Owners and Busy Professionals with me really works.
CBT Supervision
In addition to my therapy work, I am also a CBT Clinical Supervisor. As an experienced Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, I have been providing CBT Supervision for many years. If you’re a therapist and you’d like to find out more about what I can offer you, head to the section of my website just for therapists here.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQS
What are the costs of your CBT Therapy sessions?
You can find my fee information here.
Do you have a cancellation policy?
Yes when you book your first appointment, you will be sent a copy of my therapy agreement and confidentiality information, this includes details of my cancellation policy.
How many sessions of CBT Therapy will I need?
Most clients I work with have between 6-20 sessions. Once you have completed your CBT Assessment, I’ll be able to give you a better idea of how many sessions you might need. If you have financial limits for the number of sessions you can fund, let me know at this first appointment, and we can discuss what goals we can target on that basis.
I don’t set any requirement for frequency or session numbers, you are in complete control of booking your sessions as and when you want using my online booking system here.
What are your qualifications and past work history?
I am a qualified and Accredited CBT Therapist. I was accredited by the BABCP in 2015 following completing a post graduate degree. I have been working in therapy services since 2008. I completed 10 years of work within NHS funded service, and was a Senior Leader when I left to set up private practice. Prior to working in mental health services, I worked in drug services. Before that I was on a completely different career path studying as a classical musician.
I have run my own Therapy business for 10 years now, and this is my sole full time job.
How does CBT therapy actually work?
At its core, CBT Therapy is about providing a better understand of what’s going on, connecting the past together with the present, and then identifying and targeting ways of thinking and acting that no longer work for you. CBT Therapy is about empowering you with the knowledge and skills to be able to positively change how you feel. It is a proactive and change based approach to therapy, focused on the reduction of unwanted symptoms.
What are the benefits of CBT therapy?
Clients will often come to therapy to help overcome problem emotions, to help put a stop to physical symptoms, or to change the path of problem consequences they are experiencing. All these things are covered within CBT Therapy. But there’s often lots of extra benefits to CBT Therapy apart from overcoming the main problem. Many clients will report improvement in work, improved relationships, improved life balance, improved connections with friends, and renewed sense of direction in life and more. There’s a huge ripple effect of therapy.
Is CBT therapy the same with all therapists?
There will be similarities in the fact that at its core, CBT Therapy is about changing the way we think and behave. However Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is effectively a collection of lots of different theories, lots of different strategies, and therefore each therapist will pull from different aspects within this. We also will have differing personalities and may bring aspects of this into our work. For example I use lots of analogies and visual explanations as I’m a creative thinker. I also value common sense and am a natural problem solver, so I have a more straight-talking approach to therapy than others might have.
Does CBT therapy look at my past?
This will depend on what you’re coming to CBT therapy for, however for the majority of people yes. But we don’t spend lots of time talking about the past, instead we focus on helping to connect the past with the present, to make sense of why we have the difficulties that we do. It’s to give context, to help us be more compassionate and understanding of ourselves. A lot of clients want to know why, and want to know what’s at the root of their challenges, but it’s okay if you want to keep your therapy focused on the present instead.
What can I expect during my first session?
The first CBT therapy appointment is an assessment appointment. The aim is to get background information from you, to identify problem areas, to recognise repeated patterns and tendencies, and to formulate a plan for treatment. You can look at some of my Case studies as an example of the sort of things that are typically identified in this first session.
CBT Therapy for Busy Professionals - face to face or online therapy sessions available
I’m Hannah Paskin, and I’m one of Cheshire’s top-rated therapists on Google. I offer private CBT therapy in Middlewich, as well as offering CBT therapy online.
Over the last 5 years, I have worked with hundreds of busy professions to successfully help them overcome their anxiety using CBT therapy.
I often hear the same story – “I’m struggling to cope”, “I’m exhausted”, “I can’t stop overthinking”, “I’m not enjoying life”.
Private CBT therapy can really help with exactly these issues.
Why Choose CBT Therapy?
One of the real beauties of CBT Therapy is that it is packed full of logic, of theories that are simple and make sense, of explanations that we can get – it’s why I love it so much. Naturally, I’m a logical thinker and problem solver, and my clients often describe themselves as being similar.
But when anxiety, Stress or Depression get in the way, it can feel impossible to access that part of ourselves. Working with a CBT Therapist will help you to tap into that logical side again, to help you feel more like the real you, rather than the anxious, stressed or depressed you.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is actually a collection of lots of different tools and techniques, which means that you CBT Therapy can be personalised to you, your difficulties, and your goals to make sure you get what you need.
Why Pay for Private CBT Therapy?
Most clients I work with would be described as High Functioning – still going through the motions of life, just not with any joy. They typically wouldn’t be able to access one-to-one Therapy under the NHS. But that doesn’t mean that CBT Therapy wouldn’t have a huge benefit for them. Whether it’s help with worry or overthinking, with perfectionism or imposter syndrome, with being a workaholic or with unhelpful relationship patterns, seeing a Private CBT Therapist could make a significant difference to their enjoyment of life.
Each Private Therapist will have different special interests and special skills. I’m known as ‘The Straight-Talking Therapist’ as that’s one of my special skills, and it helps me get to the root of the problem with my clients faster. I am a born empath, so also offer a lot of emotional support. Clients come to me because they want answers, they want to make changes, but they currently feel stuck. CBT Therapy is a really good fit alongside my straight-talking approach, as it’s a very proactive type of therapy.
Paying for your own therapy isn’t cheap, but what it does allow you to do is choose the person you connect to and who is an expert in your exact problem. When you get that match right, it just clicks, and it can really help to make the therapy journey enjoyable.
What does Private CBT Therapy involve?
Your Therapy experience will usually start with an Assessment, an opportunity for your Private Therapist to get an understanding of what difficulties you are experiencing, how they are impacting you, and what you’re wanting to achieve from your CBT Therapy.
Once you get started with your CBT Therapy Online or in Person, treatment sessions will focus on introducing well-recognised theories to explain what’s going on for you and why. You can expect to be encouraged to complete tasks between sessions to enhance learning, and to experiment with new ways of thinking and acting. Your Private CBT Therapist will be led by the goals that you set for therapy throughout.
There’s a false myth about CBT that it doesn’t address the past and doesn’t explore the underlying cause of the current problem. This isn’t true at all. Sometimes it’s appropriate for therapy to focus solely on the here and now, and so that’s what your Private CBT Therapist will do. But there are plenty of times that Private CBT Therapy will explore your upbringing, your early experiences, traumatic events, and help you to understand how this all links with your current thinking patterns or unhelpful behaviours. CBT has the flexibility to explore the past, as well as focus on the present, we are led by a client’s goals and symptoms for what makes sense.
What can CBT Therapy help?
CBT Therapy can be used for a wide range of emotional problems such as Anxiety, Stress, Depression, Low Self-Confidence, Anger and Trauma experiences. It can also be used to help with Relationship Problems, Pain Management and much more.
If the problem you experience includes going down a rabbit hole with your unhelpful thoughts, or getting trapped in doing things that you know don’t make logical sense, the likelihood is that seeing a CBT Therapist could help.
CBT Therapy focuses on these 2 areas – our thoughts, and our actions, and how these 2 elements feed a vicious cycle that gradually worsens over time.
Does Online CBT work?
I’ve been running my own business for over 8 years now. When I first started, most of my clients would see me in person. However, the increased use of video for communication in recent years has really shifted this balance, I now have over 50% of my clients accessing Private CBT Online.
Whether sessions are in person or virtually, you are still receiving face-to-face Therapy. Online CBT has the benefit of being able to choose a Private Therapist that’s the right fit for you without the barrier of geography, as well as it being easier to make time for without needing to add in travel time.
Find a Private CBT Therapist
If you’re looking for CBT Therapy, I’d recommend finding a Private CBT Therapist who is Accredited. You can check if a Therapist is Accredited by searching with their surname here: CBT Search Results (babcp.com). I have been Accredited since 2015.
This helps to ensure that your Private CBT Therapist has trained at a high level, and is part of a professional body, and ensures you keep away from those who might only have completed an online CBT course lasting a couple of days.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQS
How does CBT therapy actually work?
At is core, CBT Therapy is about providing a better understand of what’s going on, connecting the past together with the present, and then identifying and targeting ways of thinking and acting that no longer work for you. CBT Therapy is about empowering you with the knowledge and skills to be able to positively change how you feel. It is a proactive and change based approach to therapy, focused on the reduction of unwanted symptoms.
What are the benefits of CBT therapy?
Clients will often come to therapy to help overcome problem emotions, to help put a stop to physical symptoms, or to change the path of problem consequences they are experiencing. All these things are covered in therapy. But there’s often lots of extra benefits to CBT Therapy apart from the overcoming the main problem. Many clients will report improved work, improved relationships, improved life balance, improved connections with friendships, renewed sense of direction in life and more. There’s a huge ripple effect of therapy.
Is CBT therapy the same with all therapists?
There will be similarities in the fact that at it’s core CBT Therapy is about changing the way we think and behave. However Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is effectively a collection of lots of different theories, lots of different strategies, and therefore different therapists will pull from different parts of this. We also will have differing personalities and may bring aspects of this into our work. For example I use lots of analogies, and visual explanations as I’m a creative thinker. I also value common sense and am a natural problem solver, so I have a more straight-talking approach to therapy than others may have.
Does CBT therapy look at my past?
This will depend on what you’re coming to CBT therapy for, however for the majority of people yes. But we don’t spend lots of time talking about the past, instead we focus on helping to connect the past with the present, to make sense of why we have the difficulties that we do. It’s to give context, to help us be more compassionate and understanding of ourselves. A lot of clients want to know why, and want to know what’s at the root of their challenges, but it’s okay if you want to keep your therapy focused on the present instead.
What can I expect during my first session?
The first CBT therapy appointment is an assessment appointment. The aim is to get background information from you, to identify problem areas, to recognise repeated patterns or tendencies, and to formulate a plan for treatment. You can look at some of my Case Studies as an example of the sort of things that are typically identified in this first session.
