Talk therapy

Talk therapy is regular sessions with a psychologist or therapist, working through what is going on, without the fixed protocol that defines CBT or EMDR. It covers a wide range of approaches, and in practice what you get depends far more on the individual than on the label on their door.

The evidence has a consistent and slightly awkward finding behind it: the relationship with the therapist predicts the outcome better than the method does. It suits problems too diffuse to name, where the useful thing is not a technique but an hour a week with someone whose job is to notice the patterns you cannot see from inside them.

By questionnaire

Usually weekly and open-ended, and the first few sessions are mostly establishing what you are actually there for. Nothing much happens in them, which surprises people expecting a technique.

Changing therapist after a few sessions is normal rather than a failure. Given that fit predicts the outcome, staying with someone you don't click with is the expensive mistake, not the awkward conversation.

Privately, through a health service with a waiting list, or through an employer scheme, and the price range between those is enormous.

The thing nobody tells you is that you are allowed to shop. Many therapists offer a short first call, and using it to ask how they work, rather than starting straight into your history, is the most useful twenty minutes in the process.