What is Long Covid?
Long covid is complex, episodic & unpredictable
Recovering from the long term effects of Covid-19 can be a lengthy process. Not everyone will have the same symptoms, or take the same time to recover.
Long Covid is a condition in which a person has symptoms that:
Have continued or developed after a diagnosis of Covid-19
Impact their physical, mental or social wellbeing
Are interfering in some aspect of daily living (e.g. school, work, home, relationships)
Persist for a minimum duration of 12 weeks after testing positive
Symptoms of Long Covid
The most common symptoms include fatigue and pain. However symptoms span a number of systems in our body including neurological, psychological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal systems.
There are many symptoms including sleep disturbances, brain fog, headache, concentration issues, depression or anxiety, breathlessness, palpitations, chest pain, joint pain, tummy pain, nausea, weight loss. It’s no wonder if you are experiencing Long Covid you feel rubbish and like you’ve lost your sense of self.
How can talking therapy help with Long Covid?
Talking therapy (for Long Covid we would use ACT therapy) can help people to negoitate, adapt to, manage and cope with changes that have occurred due to Long Covid symptoms. We cannot treat Long Covid, and we cannot get rid of all your symptoms. What we hope to do is to teach you new strategies and skills that will help you live a meaningful live in the face of your symptoms.
Everyone’s experience will be different and it’s completely normal to experience feelings of fear, anxiety, frustration, or become overwhelmed, stressed or experience low mood. Any illness or experience that affects day to day living in any way can lead to someone feeling low and like they are useless or make them worry that they will not recover. Usually, people try to fight their fatigue and get into boom and bust cycles. Or, they avoid activities that used to bring them joy and improve their wellbeing, through fear of the activity making them worse, or them not being able to do it anymore.
All of these normal reactions can make us feel more out of control. Not only is the Long Covid causing us all these physical symptoms, but it is robbing us of the life we used to have.
What is ACT therapy and how does it help?
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy is a form of psychotherapy. It is an evidenced based psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies along with behaviour change strategies to increase psychological flexibility (the ability to live with uncertainty). It helps us to stay focused on the present moment and accept thoughts and feelings without judgement. It teaches us to resist fighting or wrestling with thoughts and skills us to un-hook from difficult thoughts, so that we can spend our time and energy more productively; particularly moving towards what is important to us.
We hope that people who we support using this therapy will be better able to stop avoiding, denying and struggling with their inner emotions and instead accept that these feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations. However, these responses should not stop them moving forward with their lives.
ACT has been used to successfully help people with many physical and mental health conditions including anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, psychosis, eating disorders, workplace stress and chronic pain. As you can see, lots of these conditions are exacerbated by Long Covid. Throughout the UK, ACT therapy is being used by Psychologists and therapists to help people with their Long Covid condition, and the team at Calderstones have successfully ran multiple Long Covid Therapy Groups as well as used this therapy to support clients with Long Covid on a one to one basis.
Treatment options at Calderstones
We can offer people who have Long Covid (whether a formal diagnosis, or people who have the symptoms of Long Covid) access to either our group sessions or one to one therapy. Our Health Psychologists are very experienced in working in this way with people with this illness. Most people would benefit from group sessions as a starting point, and a few will usually go on to one to one therapy if their issues are particularly complex or they would benefit from more in depth therapy. Please contact us for the dates & times of the next group.
Group sessions
6 weeks, for 90 minutes per week. Price | £395
One to one sessions
Usually a course of 6-12 sessions would be advised.
Weekly or fortnightly sessions, 50 minutes per session. Price | £130
Sessions can be 25 minutes for people struggling with fatigue. Price | £65