These are the clinical methods Donald lists. The descriptions are Maker Therapy's, not
Donald's - a general explanation of what each method is, so the list means something before
you have spoken to anybody. They are not a claim about how Donald runs a session.
- Acceptance and Commitment TherapyACT
- Rather than trying to argue a painful thought away, ACT works on loosening its grip and getting on with what matters to you anyway. Sessions spend real time naming your values, then building action around them while difficult feelings are still present.
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Reads present-day relationship difficulty through the lens of how safety and closeness were learned early on. The therapeutic relationship itself is treated as part of the work, because it is where the pattern tends to show up first.
- Cognitive Behavioural TherapyCBT
- Structured, present-focused work on the loop between what you think, how you feel and what you then do. Usually means noticing a thought pattern in the room, testing it against evidence, and practising something different between sessions. Among the most heavily researched talking therapies for depression and anxiety.
- Dialectical Behaviour TherapyDBT
- A structured skills-led adaptation of CBT built around holding two things at once: accepting yourself as you are and working to change. Teaches concrete skills for distress tolerance, emotion regulation and relationships. Developed for people whose feelings arrive at overwhelming intensity, and strongest-evidenced there.
- Emotionally Focused TherapyEFT
- Built for couples and rooted in attachment: the recurring argument is treated as a cycle two people are stuck in rather than as one person's fault. Sessions work to interrupt the cycle and get to what each person is actually asking for underneath it.
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and ReprocessingEMDR
- A structured trauma protocol in which you hold a distressing memory in mind while following a repeated side-to-side cue. The mechanism is still debated; the outcome data in post-traumatic stress is strong enough that it appears in national treatment guidelines.
- Mindfulness-Based TherapyMBCT
- Trains attention on what is happening right now - body, breath, the thought as it arrives - so distress can be observed rather than automatically acted on. Strongest evidence is in preventing depression from recurring, and it is usually taught as a practice you keep doing outside the session.
- Motivational InterviewingMI
- A way of talking about change with somebody who is genuinely in two minds about it. The therapist does not argue for the change; they help you say your own reasons out loud, which is the part that predicts whether it happens. Common around substance use and health behaviour.
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Works on the assumption that current patterns - in relationships, at work, in how you treat yourself - have a history, and that seeing the history loosens the pattern. Less structured than CBT, usually longer, and more interested in what comes up unbidden than in a weekly agenda.
- Solution-Focused Brief TherapySFBT
- Starts from where you want to end up rather than from how you got here. Sessions look for the times the problem is already smaller and work out what is different about those, so the number of sessions tends to be short and the work concrete.
- Trauma-Focused TherapyTF-CBT · trauma-informed
- CBT adapted for people whose difficulty is rooted in a frightening or overwhelming event. Pacing is the point: safety and stabilisation come first, the memory itself is approached gradually and only when you are ready, and the aim is that recalling it stops hijacking the present.
- Internal Family SystemsIFS
- Treats the mind as made up of parts - the critic, the one who withdraws, the one that keeps everything running - each of which is trying to protect you. The work is getting to know them rather than overruling them.