Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a structured, evidence-based therapy that helps people understand how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours influence each other. It focuses on building practical skills and making meaningful changes in day-to-day life, not just talking about problems.

Together, we identify unhelpful patterns—whether that’s a thinking style, a behaviour, or an emotional response—and experiment with new ways of approaching situations. This often involves learning tools, testing them out between sessions, and reviewing what helped.

What kinds of issues does CBT help with?

CBT is well-supported for anxiety, low mood, stress, trauma, OCD, health anxiety, sleep problems, eating difficulties, and relationship or work-related stress. It’s also commonly used for people managing long-term health conditions or pain.

How many sessions will I need?

Many people notice improvement between 6–12 sessions, but it varies. Some prefer brief, focused work; others choose longer-term support to consolidate skills. We’ll work together to find a pace and duration that feels right for you.

Sessions are structured but collaborative. We’ll check in on how you’ve been, review any home practice, work through a specific difficulty, and agree on a small goal or experiment to try before the next session.

Is CBT the right approach for me?

If you prefer a collaborative, skills-based, structured therapy with clear strategies, CBT is usually a good fit. If you’re not sure, we can use the first session to look at your goals and decide together.

What is the difference between CBT and other therapies?

CBT focuses on the present and on active change. Unlike traditional “talk therapy,” it’s more structured and strategy-driven. It also tends to be shorter term. That said, it can be integrated with other approaches like ACT, CFT, and schema therapy when helpful.

Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, often called CBT, is a practical, evidence-based therapy that helps you understand the link between what you think, what you feel, what you do, and what happens in your body. When people feel stuck, overwhelmed, low, anxious, stressed or caught in repeating patterns, CBT helps make sense of what is happening and shows how change can begin.

Many difficulties are maintained not just by the original problem, but by the patterns that build around it. You might start avoiding situations, getting caught in worry, becoming harsh with yourself, withdrawing from people, over-preparing, checking, procrastinating, or feeling trapped in habits that bring short-term relief but keep things going in the long run.

At Hampstead Psychology, we offer CBT therapy in Hampstead, London, and online across the UK and internationally. We help you build a clear understanding of what is maintaining the difficulty and work in a focused, collaborative way to create change that feels realistic and lasting.

This page is for information and does not replace a clinical assessment, diagnosis, or medical advice.

When CBT might be helpful

You might recognise some of these experiences:

You feel stuck in cycles of anxiety, low mood, stress, or self-criticism.
Your mind gets caught in overthinking, rumination, or worst-case scenarios.
You avoid situations, conversations, decisions, or feelings because they feel too difficult.
You keep repeating patterns that you know are unhelpful, but struggle to change them.
You feel driven by pressure, perfectionism, or fear of getting things wrong.
You notice strong emotional reactions that seem hard to manage or understand.
You feel trapped in habits that help in the short term but make things worse over time.
You want therapy that is structured, active, and practical rather than vague or open-ended.
You want to understand not only why you feel the way you do, but what to do next.

If this sounds familiar, CBT may help. It is especially useful when there is a clear cycle keeping a problem going and you want a therapy that combines insight with practical change.

What CBT can help with

Anxiety, worry and overthinking

CBT can help with generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic, health anxiety, phobias and fear of uncertainty. Therapy helps you understand the thoughts, behaviours and physical responses that keep anxiety going, including worry, avoidance, checking, reassurance-seeking and over-preparing.

Depression, low mood and withdrawal

When mood is low, people often withdraw from life, lose confidence, stop doing things that matter or become caught in self-critical thinking. CBT helps identify the patterns that maintain depression and supports practical steps towards activity, connection, routine and a stronger sense of agency.

Panic and fear of physical symptoms

CBT can be helpful when physical sensations such as a racing heart, dizziness, breathlessness or tightness feel frightening. Therapy helps you understand the panic cycle, reduce fear of bodily sensations, and rebuild confidence in your ability to cope.

Stress, burnout and perfectionism

CBT can help when stress is maintained by perfectionism, over-responsibility, people-pleasing, fear of failure or difficulty switching off. Therapy helps you understand the beliefs and behaviours driving pressure, and supports more sustainable ways of working, resting and responding.

Health anxiety, checking and reassurance

CBT is often used for health anxiety, especially when worry about symptoms leads to checking, scanning, reassurance-seeking, online searching or repeated medical consultations. Therapy helps you understand the cycle of fear and develop more helpful ways of responding to uncertainty and bodily sensations.

Related difficulties we often see together.

Many people come to CBT with more than one difficulty. Anxiety may sit alongside burnout, low mood may sit alongside avoidance, and health anxiety may sit alongside panic, stress or fear of uncertainty.

Therapy works best when we understand the whole picture while keeping the work clear and focused. We look at how your thoughts, emotions, body, behaviour, relationships and environment interact.

What keeps problems going?

CBT is based on the idea that difficulties are often maintained by cycles that make sense in the moment, even if they end up making life harder.

Something triggers distress. This might be a thought, a memory, a bodily sensation, a situation, or an interaction.
Your mind then responds in a particular way. You might worry, ruminate, criticise yourself, catastrophise, shut down emotionally, or assume the worst.
You then do something to manage that distress. You might avoid, withdraw, check, seek reassurance, overwork, overprepare, procrastinate, or try to push thoughts away.

This may help in the short term. But over time it often teaches the brain that the danger was real, the feeling was unbearable, or the situation could not be handled. The cycle then becomes stronger. CBT helps you step out of this loop. It gives you a way of understanding the pattern and then changing it in a structured, realistic way.

How CBT therapy helps

At Hampstead Psychology, CBT is not delivered as a generic set of techniques. We begin by understanding the specific pattern you are caught in, including the thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations and behaviours that keep the difficulty going.

Therapy then helps you build practical strategies for change. This may include reducing avoidance, testing predictions, changing unhelpful coping behaviours, working with self-criticism, building routine, or responding differently to uncertainty and physical symptoms.

What to expect from sessions

Sessions are active, structured and collaborative. We develop a shared formulation of what is keeping the problem going, then use this to identify practical changes that can be tested between sessions. The work may involve noticing patterns, trying new strategies, testing predictions or practising different responses in real life.

How long does therapy take?

This depends on the difficulty, how long it has been present, and how many overlapping patterns are involved. Some people benefit from focused CBT for anxiety, panic, health anxiety, low mood or stress. Others may need longer therapy where difficulties are linked to trauma, self-criticism, perfectionism, relationship patterns or repeated relapses.

CBT therapy in London and online

We offer CBT therapy in person in Hampstead, London, and online across the UK and internationally. Both in-person and online CBT can be effective.

Take the next step

If you are feeling stuck in a pattern of anxiety, low mood, stress, avoidance, self-criticism, or emotional overwhelm, CBT can offer a structured and practical way forward. Therapy helps you understand what is maintaining the problem and begin changing it with support, clarity, and direction. Contact Hampstead Psychology to enquire about CBT therapy in London or online.

Useful links: Panic Attacks, Health Anxiety, Stress and Burnout, Insomnia and Sleep Problems, Fees, Meet the Team, Contact.

Urgent Help

If you are worried about immediate risk to your safety, call 999 or go to A&E. If you need urgent support but it isn’t an emergency, contact NHS 111 or your GP. You can also contact Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7).

Meet The Team

At Hampstead Psychology, all of our psychologists have extensive training to doctoral level and decades of experience in their field of expertise. You will be matched with a psychologist that has the knowledge and skill to help you understand and overcome your problem - not just in the short term but for good.