Accessing mental health services can be overwhelming. On top of the muddle of feelings we’ve got going on, we also find ourselves grappling with jargon. Someone might refer us to an SPA, who contact IAPT, who refer us to CMHT where we end up with a CPN as our CCo.

It sounds like gobbledygook and makes about as much sense as someone telling us that they’re referring us to the dancing turtle who might then refer us onto the talking lizard. We’re exhausted, run-down, and scared. Our brain isn’t functioning well enough to translate acronyms or learn new words. We want to know what’s happening in plain English.

So, we’ve jargon-busted 100 different mental health terms and acronyms. It’s worth being aware that different trusts within the NHS, and private companies, might use slightly different terms. Additionally, all of these definitions are based on the UK mental health system. Although many terms are likely to be universal, we can’t guarantee that they’ll be identical.