Private CBT therapist in Essex
Take back control with CBT therapy
Work with Ryan Hegarty online or through home visits across Essex and London.
What is CBT therapy?
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is an evidence-backed therapy for patterns that keep repeating. Anxiety before a meeting. Avoiding a message. Snapping, shutting down, overthinking. That kind of thing.
In CBT sessions, we look at what happened, what your mind made of it, how your body reacted, and what you did afterwards. Then we decide what would be worth trying differently in real life.
What are the benefits of CBT therapy?
The main strength of CBT is how it can take a problem that feels too big to get hold of, and break it into parts we can work with: thoughts, body responses, habits, avoidance, rules, and predictions
CBT therapy can help you:
- Spot the thought patterns you keep falling into
- Reduce overthinking, rumination and mental replaying
- Change habits that give short-term relief and long-term stress
- Feel less frightened by body symptoms
- Build healthier routines around sleep, work, and relationships
- Test beliefs that feel true because they’re familiar
- Get better at catching yourself earlier
- Build tools you can use outside sessions
How does CBT therapy work?
CBT works by turning “I don’t know why I’m like this” into something much more specific. What triggered it? What did you tell yourself? What did your body do? What was your response? There’s usually a pattern in there. We find it, and then test a different reaction to it. That might be a new response to panic, a small change in your routine, or a test for a belief that has been bossing you around for years.
Therapy has to survive real life. Otherwise, what are we doing?
What can CBT therapy help with?
CBT has been proven to help with a lot of the issues high achieving professionals face.
Here are just a few:
Anxiety
With anxiety, your brain can turn ordinary uncertainty into a full risk assessment. CBT helps you test the predictions driving it.
Depression
When depression pulls you away from life, CBT helps us look at the thoughts and behaviours keeping you stuck there.
PTSD
With trauma, the event may be over, while the rules you learned from it are still running. CBT looks at those rules.
Panic
Panic can make normal body sensations feel dangerous. CBT helps you understand the cycle and stop fearing your own nervous system.
Work Stress & Burnout
CBT can help when pressure has turned into irritability, dread, exhaustion, over-control, or the inability to properly switch off.
Perfectionism
When good enough never feels safe enough, CBT helps challenge the standards you’ve been living under.
Anxiety
With anxiety, your brain can turn ordinary uncertainty into a full risk assessment. CBT helps you test the predictions driving it.
Depression
When depression pulls you away from life, CBT helps us look at the thoughts and behaviours keeping you stuck there.
PTSD
With trauma, the event may be over, while the rules you learned from it are still running. CBT looks at those rules.
Panic
Panic can make normal body sensations feel dangerous. CBT helps you understand the cycle and stop fearing your own nervous system.
Work Stress & Burnout
CBT can help when pressure has turned into irritability, dread, exhaustion, over-control, or the inability to properly switch off.
Perfectionism
When good enough never feels safe enough, CBT helps challenge the standards you’ve been living under.
Work with private CBT therapist, Ryan Hegarty
I’m a BABCP-accredited psychotherapist and registered mental health nurse with extensive CBT training and over a decade in mental health.
CBT is one of my favourite evidence-backed therapy frameworks to use with clients, because it gives the work structure. There’s a method, a reason for using it, and something to take with you afterwards. I offer CBT therapy online or through home visits throughout London and Essex.
What changed for them
Hear from some of my clients.
Can’t recommend highly enough!!!
Ryan was an exceptional trauma-informed CBT therapist and I can’t recommend him highly enough. From the very first session, he immediately made me feel relaxed, safe, and comfortable enough to open up about what was going on. He explained things in a way that was easy to understand and always made the techniques feel relevant and personal to my situation.
My time working with Ryan was very helpful and productive. I’ve had several counsellors over the years, and elements of Ryan’s approach were quite different and very suited to me. His manner is relaxed and empathetic. Whilst the time was taken to aid my understanding of myself, he also provided real tools and tactics that enabled me to put the changes I wanted to make into practice. This has often been the gap in the past that prevented me from making meaningful change. I’m doing well now, but wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Ryan, for a top up, or to work through another issue on the future. Thank you, Ryan.
Life Changing.
Ryan has been incredible throughout. His pragmatic approach and tools have helped me overcome a number of challenges which have built up over time.
His clear communication style and clarity ensured I was able to understand everything in the first instance and the awareness I developed with his help has significantly improved my view on many things and helped me be more accepting in certain situations which would have previously snow balled and got out of control.
Without question or doubt, I’d highly recommend Ryan. Thank you Ryan.
I couldn’t recommend Ryan more.
Ryan is a highly trained therapist, who you feel at ease with after just your first meeting. He speaks to you like you’re a real person and creates an environment that you feel that you can open up in. Ryan has real life applicable techniques which are easy to integrate into your day to day life. He genuinely has changed my life and way of thinking.
I have tried NHS and a few other therapy services. Slan Therapy was the one that stuck. Ryan is patient and lets you go at your own pace whilst also making sure you are progressing. He made me feel so at ease and I looked forward to the sessions instead of dreading them (like all the ones before). My life is now brighter since working with him. 100% recommend, his Irish self won’t let you down!
Ryan is a phenomenal practitioner of pyschotherapy and CBT. I started working with him on a personal recommendation and within a few sessions he had helped me not only understand (for the first time) what was going on for me, but also started equipping me with practical work that made a real difference.
Ryan is a highly trained therapist, who you feel at ease with after just your first meeting. He speaks to you like you’re a real person and creates an environment that you feel that you can open up in. Ryan has real life applicable techniques which are easy to integrate into your day to day life. He genuinely has changed my life and way of thinking.
Read more of our trusted reviews online
What happens on a discovery call for CBT?
We talk through the problem and see whether CBT is the right route.
I’ll ask what has brought you here, how long it has been going on, how it affects your day, and what you’ve already tried. I’ll also want to know what you want to be different.
If I feel like I could be a good fit for you, I’ll recommend that. If I don’t, I won’t.
Can you do CBT therapy online?
Yes. I offer CBT therapy online and through home visits across London and Essex.
Online CBT can work well if you’ve got privacy, a good WiFi connection and a space where you can think properly. Home visits can suit people who want less travel, more privacy or a therapy option that fits around busy work and family life.
We’ll work out the best format on the discovery call. Book yours now.
How does CBT help with panic attacks?
Panic becomes frightening because the body symptoms feel dangerous.
A racing heart can feel like something is seriously wrong. Dizziness can feel like you’ll faint. Breathlessness can make you monitor every inhale like it’s a performance review.
CBT helps you understand what panic is doing in the body. Then we work on reducing the fear of those sensations and the avoidance that grows around them.
That might involve education, breathing differently, dropping safety behaviours, and testing what your body can actually handle.
What if I’ve tried CBT before and didn’t like it?
Tell me that.
I’d want to know what felt patronising, scripted, rushed, too basic or too worksheet-heavy. A bad experience with CBT doesn’t automatically mean CBT has nothing to offer you.
It might be that the fit was wrong, the work stayed too surface-level, or the therapy didn’t connect with your actual life.
Book a discovery call and can talk it through. If CBT deserves another go, I’ll say why. If another approach fits better, I’ll say that too.
Do I need to be good at talking about feelings?
No. Facts are fine.
You can start with what happened, what you did, what you avoided, what your body felt like, or what kept going round your head afterwards. Feeling words can come later.
CBT gives us a structure, which helps if talking about emotions feels awkward or difficult for you.
Is CBT just positive thinking?
No. CBT is more interested in accurate thinking.
If your mind is predicting disaster, we test that. If you’re assuming everyone is judging you, we look at the evidence. If your self-criticism is running the show, we examine what it’s doing to you.
There are also times when the situation genuinely is hard. CBT doesn’t ask you to pretend otherwise.
We look at the thought, the facts, the behaviour, and the response that gives you the best chance of coping well.
How long does CBT take?
It depends on the problem.
A certain panic or anxiety pattern may move faster than long-running depression, trauma, or burnout. Progress also depends on what happens between sessions, because CBT relies on practising things in real life.
We’ll review progress as we go. If things are changing, good. If they’re not, we talk about why and adjust the work.
What does private CBT therapy cost?
Online CBT therapy costs £99 per session.
Home visits are priced depending on your location, because travel time and distance vary across London and Essex. I’ll explain the cost before anything is booked.
Most sessions last 50 minutes to one hour.
If you’re using insurance, it’s worth checking your policy first. Some providers need pre-authorisation or specific details before sessions begin.
Book the call. We’ll take it from there.
A first conversation about what’s happening, what you need help with, and whether my approach fits.