Callum Lodge Specialist Psychotherapies Service

I finished my psychotherapy treatment several months ago and I am so glad that I was able to work with such a compassionate, highly-skilled, experienced professional. It took over a year to feel that his holding of boundaries, me & the therapy space was safe, allowing me to experience myself, him & then others in a different, much less defensive way. The therapist made every effort to hold this safe space during lockdown via telephone & online sessions. Psychotherapy is mysterious in that I know it’s helped me but I’m not sure how! I will be forever grateful to him & the Specialist Psychotherapies Service.

The therapist lost interest quickly and stopped listening to me. The summary they sent out is full of lies and I feel worse for having gone through the service. Someone people should not be allowed to work with vulnerable people.

I was treated intensively at the service for the best part of 3 years altogether (2015-2018) which resulted in a mental breakdown and subsequently a severe PTSD. During all that time, the two therapists I saw did not notice my then undiagnosed autism. Three months ago in May 2019, I was diagnosed with autism by a specialist multidisciplinary team externally as the trust does not diagnose autism. I feel deeply scarred by the service and live in constant panic attacks associated with random memories from my treatment. During my breakdown in 2016 I became almost nonverbal as my autism about which I didn't know at the time has worsened because of my clinical experience. I could also hardly walk and kept experiencing physical injuries as a result of my worsened coordination skills. No clinician at the service suspected my autism and I returned for more treatment by a second therapist there. I feel even more scared from the subsequent therapy there by the complete breakdown in communication with the therapist who yet again did not realise that I am autistic and that communication has a different meaning to me. It is essential to incorporate this element in an intensive transformative psychotherapy to not lead to a severe trauma and worsen their condition. My intensive psychological treatment ended unsuccessfully and left me feeling deeply scarred and traumatised. I do not recommend this service to any autistic people and advise caution when proceeding to any other patients.

The therapist I'm seeing is very compassionate, "gently" challenging & above all knowledgeable. I feel safe in his ability to hold the boundaries of the session which is slowly allowing me to let go of feeling responsible for it all myself & enabling me to hopefully engage in a deeper way. Feel that I'm being understood & heard.

I see a psychotherapist at Callum Lodge. She is amazing. I have seen councillors before and they have done nothing for me. It has taken me many years to get the help that I need. Doctors are not trained enough in mental health issues and unfortunately because of that a lot of us slip through the net and never get the help we do desperately need.

My therapist is professional, compassionate and extremely knowledgeable. I have been in therapy 9 months and still have a long way to go but already she has helped enormously .

When you see a therapist you expect that they ask a few things yes and explaining things fair enough. This person bombarded me with some questions that really was too soon and rather than helping me made feel worse. :-(