UCOPE

UCOPE offers two separate pathways:

• UCOPE therapy is short term therapeutic intervention using a blended approach of Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy (PIT) and Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT) 
• Student liaison provides a link between universities and the NHS. The purpose of the Student Liaison Service is that all services have up to date, timely information to ensure robust risk management. Students must consent to student liaison intervention.

UCOPE therapeutic intervention and the student liaison pathway are accessible to students who are currently attending one of these universities, regardless of their address or registered GP:

• University of Liverpool (UOL)
• Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU)
• HOPE University
• Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA)
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM)

Please refer to inclusion and exclusion criteria for further information.

Therapy is a combination of two models that were designed to help develop understanding and awareness of how and why you feel the way you do and how to cope with your feelings more effectively.

Cognitive analytic therapy, also known as CAT, is a talking therapy that mainly focuses on relationship patterns.  

It’s based on the idea that our early life experiences influence the way we relate to other people and how we treat ourselves. This means that sometimes patterns of behaviour, or our expectations of other people’s behaviour, can develop into unhealthy or unhelpful repeating patterns, as well as those that are healthy and helpful.

During therapy you will explore how you manage your relationships and cope with feelings or difficult situations. This will involve identifying patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.

By looking at these patterns more closely, you will:

• Clarify which ones are helpful or unhelpful
• Understand how these patterns have developed
• Discover what makes you keep repeating them
• Find alternative, more effective ways of managing to stop negative experiences or feelings from recurring.

The aim of this is to minimise the distress you experience within your relationships with others and with yourself.

Using a blended approach, we take aspects of these two therapies to help you build a map of what leads to you experiencing self harming urges and how you might soothe or find alternative ways of managing your feelings.

This offers an interface between Liverpool universities and the NHS. The purpose of the service is to ensure all services have up to date, timely information to ensure robust risk management. UCOPE practitioners relay information as necessary between services and attend university mental health multidisciplinary team meetings. It’s important for students to be involved in their care and consent to information sharing between professionals at the earliest opportunity.

Referral process

Where to seek referral

Therapy structure

You'll be offered an initial assessment which will be 60 to 90 minutes. This appointment will allow you to talk about your current difficulties and will focus on your personal, family and social history. It will also explore past and current emotional health and risk.

If felt mutually that UCOPE is right for you, your therapist will offer:

• Four treatment sessions, each lasting 50 minutes. Here you will have time to explore your relationships, both with self and others and start making sense of what leads you to self harm.  A space is created between you and your therapist in which you’re encouraged to feel difficult emotions in a safe and supported environment  

• UCOPE/Student Liaison Service is able and willing to work collaboratively with universities and other support services so that we can use all available resources and work on a shared plan of care. This can be especially useful in times of crisis.

Comments, compliments and complaints

If you think we’ve done something well and want to give our staff a compliment, or you have an idea about how we could improve and want to comment on it, we’d love to hear from you. You can use the form below to make a complaint if there’s something you think we have done wrong or something that you are dissatisfied with. We hope that everyone who uses our services has a positive experience, but we recognise that sometimes things go wrong. There is always room for improvement!

If you like, you can read more about our comments, compliments and complaints policy, including what happens after you submit this form, on the contact us section on our website.