Therapeutic Approaches
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT is built around a deceptively simple idea: that a life well lived isn't about feeling good all the time, but about moving in the direction that matters to you, even when things are hard. Much of our suffering comes not from difficult thoughts and feelings themselves, but from the struggle against them; the energy we pour into trying to push away, avoid, or silence the parts of our inner experience we'd rather not have.
ACT gently shifts that. It helps you make room for what cannot be changed, so that you're no longer fighting yourself, and frees up the energy to be courageous in taking meaningful steps towards the life you actually want. ACT works across six interconnected areas: learning to observe your thoughts rather than be swept away by them; making room for difficult feelings rather than avoiding them; staying grounded in the present moment; developing a steadier sense of who you are beyond your thoughts and feelings; getting clear on your values; and taking committed action towards them.
Together, these aren't just coping strategies; they're an invitation to live more fully, even alongside pain or difficulty that may not go away entirely. Many people find that distinction quietly transformative.
Below you'll find summaries of the four main therapeutic approaches that we draw on here at The Huddle.
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)
CFT starts with something that many people find unexpectedly relieving: the recognition that your brain isn't broken. Human brains are extraordinarily complex, shaped by evolution to keep us alive, and that means we're all wired, to varying degrees, to scan for threat. We notice danger quickly, we ruminate, we compare ourselves to others, we turn criticism inward. None of this is a character flaw. It's a tricky brain doing what tricky brains do.
CFT works with this honestly, using a model of three systems that drive much of our emotional life: a threat system that keeps us safe, a drive system that motivates and pushes us forward, and a soothing system that helps us feel settled, steady, and in control. CFT looks at how to bring these into better balance, so you're not running on threat and drive alone. It's particularly effective for people who struggle with shame, harsh self-criticism, or a deep sense of not being good enough.
The approach CFT takes is compassion, but not as most people picture it. It takes wisdom to see a problem clearly rather than through a fog of self-judgment, and it takes courage to turn toward what's difficult instead of avoiding it or numbing it. Sometimes that looks gentle. Just as often it's fierce; the same instinct that makes you stand your ground for someone you care about, turned inward. It's what lets you hold high standards without the self-attack, and back yourself up instead of tearing yourself down.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
At its core, CBT is about noticing the links between what you think, how you feel, what happens in your body, and what you do; and finding the points in that chain where change is actually possible. It's practical and structured, which is part of its strength: it gives you something to work with rather than just something to talk about. But structure isn't the same as rigidity. People, and the problems they bring, rarely fit a single model cleanly.
I trained fully in CBT and use it as a genuine working tool, not a script. In practice, that means starting with your formulation - what's maintaining the difficulty for you, specifically - rather than starting with a technique and looking for somewhere to apply it. Where CBT gives the clearest route forward, we'll use it directly. Where a different lens fits better (e.g. understanding the emotional or bodily roots of a pattern, working with self-criticism and shame, or processing something that's stuck) I'll draw on ACT, CFT, or EMDR alongside it, or instead of it. The aim isn't loyalty to one model; it's finding what will genuinely help you move forward.
This matters most with the things CBT alone sometimes struggles to reach: long-standing patterns, harsh self-judgment, or difficulties that are as much about how you relate to your thoughts and feelings as the thoughts themselves. CBT gives you the tools to test and change unhelpful patterns. If you've had CBT before and it felt manualised or one-size-fits-all, that's not how it works here. Sometimes it means a fairly classic, structured course of CBT, if that's what fits and what you'd prefer. Just as often it means CBT woven together with other approaches as your formulation calls for it. Either way, it's built around what will actually help you, not delivered as a fixed programme you're slotted into.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a therapy developed specifically for helping the mind process difficult or overwhelming experiences. Sometimes distressing memories get "stuck", not fully processed. This can mean they keep intruding on the present in the form of anxiety, flashbacks, a sudden wave of emotion, or a felt sense of danger that doesn't match here-and-now reality.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (such as guided side-to-side eye movements) alongside gentle, structured attention to the memory, which seems to support the brain's own natural way of processing and filing experiences; turning something that's still gripping you into something that simply happened. It's one of the most well-evidenced therapies available for trauma and other forms of distress that feel impossible to move past.
You don't need to describe the memory in detail for it to work, which many people find a relief. Over time, the memory tends to lose its emotional charge. I offer EMDR alongside ACT and CFT, so we can move at a pace that feels safe and keep compassion and containment at the centre of the work.