Therapy

The ethos behind Brief Psychosocial Intervention is to ‘keep it simple, and do it well’.  This thought process feeds into everything we do here at CambridgeBPI.

BPI is a proven therapeutic technique, that in 2019 received a recommendation from the UK’s acclaimed National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment option for 11-18-year-olds with moderate to severe depression.

The technique provides a quick, clinically effective, and value-for-money solution to adolescent depression.

Under the CambridgeBPI banner, this form of treatment is targeted towards adolescents suffering from depression.  It helps patients to identify and manage the root causes of their depressive feelings, offering straightforward yet impactful routes to help them get back on track.

BPI interventions are designed to rapidly reduce and remove mental health difficulties and promote well-being.  The primary objective is mental health recovery, helping adolescents with three key approaches:

1. Pedagogic: achieve a personalised, shared understanding of how the young person’s current mental state works using psycho-education.
2. Prosocial: collaboratively agree on a prescription for social and personal interventions to promote recovery through relationships with family and friends and help improve personal performance.
3. Habilitative: consolidate confidence and competence in personal wellbeing, promoting healthy habits and positive social behaviour.

For many depressed adolescents, being clearly informed about depression and how the mind works is a key step in treatment.

We combine this new understanding of mental states through psycho-education with collaborative ways of helping repair social relationships and self-performance.

The young person – and indeed their parents/carers – are supported to gain confidence with new information about mental states, and to use real-world skills.  This helps the young person to remain sociable, perform well at school, and to feel comfortable and safe with family and friends.  These are the outcomes that are delivered by BPI.

The effects of BPI are rapid and have been shown to last for at least 12 months after leaving the clinic, in up to 85% of young people.

Treatment takes a comprehensive look at the key triggers and pathways out of depressive episodes.  Key to this is person-centred, holistic learning about one’s own mind and body, reconnecting with others, and refreshing knowledge of self-care and personal performance.

The therapy provides a combination of assessment and engagement with both the young person and their parents or guardian(s).

BPI identifies symptoms and the extent to which they impair the lives of each patient.  By understanding the triggers and root causes of these feelings, clinicians help young people handle them more effectively.  Working closely with the relevant caregivers, and as agreed with schools or colleges, practitioners ensure suitable pathways to wellness are identified and implemented.

Here are some of the comments made by young people who received BPI therapy:

“The therapist made me feel comfortable so that I could get stuff out and relate to someone."

“I was not forced to talk, and we came up with positive things together.”

“I trusted the therapist and I always knew they were there to fix me and not be my buddy.”

“Talking does a lot more than we realise. I got a different perspective of depression through new information, and taking a different perspective on myself.”

If you’d like to find out more about the science underpinning BPI, or to access published work about adolescents’ experience of BPI, please register your interest.

Please see our training opportunities.