Psychology Services

The Team
We have our own Psychology Department based at our Reading head office. The team is headed by two Consultant Clinical Psychologists who have many years of experience in the Learning Disabilities field. Their supervision and direction support a team of five Assistant Psychologists, a Transitional Psychologist and a Counselling Psychologist, who are involved in the assessment and interventions that address the emotional, psychological and behavioural needs of our service users.

Services
Service users arrive at CHOICE with a variety of complex needs. One of our strengths lies in our flexible, positive and person-centred approach to services that enhance the individual’s quality of life.

The Psychology Team forms a solid base to the overall service we offer. The primary needs of service users often centre around challenging behaviours and complex needs, and the team have extensive experience in the development of effective interventions in this area.

Our Approach
Our approach to the management of challenging behaviours is based on an applied behavioural approach. We believe challenging behaviours are functional for the individual. Our objective, therefore, is to help the individual, through a variety of approaches, develop alternative, more adaptive coping, expressive and communication strategies. This involves detailed written behavioural management procedures to guide staff in consistent work with individuals.

We believe in close liaison with other professionals in order to optimise a multi-disciplinary approach, focusing on all needs of the individual. This includes liaison with, and support from, Consultant Psychiatrists and Speech and Language therapists in particular, but may also include access to other therapists, such as Physiotherapy, Massage, Art, Drama and Music.

Interventions are always tailored to the individual, and are complementary to the daily work carried out by all staff. The following is a general list of interventions that may be utilised:

Enabling and encouraging communication skills (e.g. where challenging behaviour functions as a maladaptive way of communicating needs or feelings).
Relaxation training for high levels of physical tension or high levels of anxiety, which may also include further sessions of aromatherapy and massage.
Social skills training for challenging behaviours that are a result of inappropriate interactions with others.
Anger Management strategies; where anger is recognised as a valid feeling, but the individual is encouraged to learn new ways of expressing this.
Personal relationships.
Individual Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or counselling (e.g. where the behaviour may be due to anger, depression, anxiety, bereavement and loss experiences, sexual abuse, etc.).
Life story work / reminiscence to help the individual understand their lives and develop their sense of identity.

Our focus is to encourage and enable individuals to display positive behaviour, as far as possible, rather than using aversive consequences as a way of reducing challenging behaviours.