Service available in:
About us
Our team includes four therapy practitioners who are supported by a senior administrator, manager and team leader. We have experience working in mental health and therapy services that encompass fields as diverse as personality disorders, child and adolescent mental health, psychosis, neurosis and neurodivergence.
We work collaboratively with local universities to improve student access to mental health care. We’re passionate about using our skills and experience to deliver a service specifically designed to address emotional difficulties associated with self harming behaviours and urges. We also facilitate effective, safer liaison between universities and local services which improves awareness and appropriate access.
We aim to provide a safe and non judgemental space in which we can help you explore and understand the painful feelings that lead to you hurting yourself and help you find ways of soothing and managing those feelings.
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.
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.
Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy, also known as PIT, takes the form of an in depth conversation between two people in which difficulties are explored in a “heart to heart” conversation similar to that we might have with someone we trust with a personal problem. PIT is more than this though as we’re trained to help focus the conversation on the most important issues for you, and support you with difficult feelings that this brings up.
We use PIT as people struggling with self harming urges and behaviours often report problems with managing their feelings, as well as difficulties in their relationships with other people.
The PIT conversation therefore focuses on:
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Your emotional life (which is what the term “psychodynamic” refers to)
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Your relationships with other people (which is what the term “interpersonal” refers to); and
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How problems with managing feelings and relationships might link with difficult experiences in your past, particularly with your parents or other important people.
The goal of the conversation is for us to work together to help you get a better understanding of your difficulties with feelings and relationships, so that you can manage your problems more effectively. To do this, we will often encourage you to focus on and “stay with” difficult feelings that you experience during therapy sessions, including your feelings about the session and your therapist.
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.
The student liaison service is appropriate for:
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Students who contact Mersey Care urgent care phone line
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Following assessment by A&E mental health liaison team
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Students who come into contact with our triage cars
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Concerns from university support services
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Students who are admitted to mental health hospitals
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Any student contacts with primary or secondary care services
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:
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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
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A follow up session at least four weeks after your last treatment session. This allows you to reflect on how you’re progressing since therapy ended.
What we expect from you
What you can expect from us
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We’ll take a compassionate and supportive approach and will personalise your care
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We’ll be respectful and inclusive
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We’ll ensure we have a private room for therapy, whether face to face or virtual
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We’ll ensure your appointments are arranged with notice. They’ll usually happen at the same time and place each week. If we need to reschedule a session, we’ll offer the next mutually suitable time. We will ensure that any cancellations by the practitioner are made up for.
Support from universities
University of Liverpool
For further information visit their website.
Alternatively, students can email the team at advice
Liverpool John Moores University
For further information visit their website.
Alternatively, students can email the team at studentwellbeing@ljmu.ac.uk or call on 0151 231 3664
Liverpool Hope University
For further information visit their website.
Alternatively, students can email the team at sdw
Liverpool Institute for performing Arts
For further information visit their website.
Alternatively, students can email the team at student
Liverpool school of Tropical Medicine
For further information visit their website.
Alternatively, students can email the team at SAW
University of Liverpool International College
For further information visit their website, alternatively, students can call the team on 0151 318 4300.
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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.
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In doing so the therapist may discuss relevant aspects of therapy in order to inform other parts of your care.
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Your therapist will not discuss you beyond other relevant services unless risk levels indicate a need to. We will ensure that information is passed to the most appropriate people/agency, who can reduce this risk. In some circumstances this may be a family member. We will always try to share information with your prior knowledge, except in emergency situations.
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.