At Smart TMS, we regularly work with individuals who have struggled to find relief from mental health conditions through conventional treatments. Many of our patients come to us after trying a wide range of therapies — from antidepressant medications to talking therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and even Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) — but still feel stuck.
A common sentiment we hear is:
“I’ve tried therapy. It just didn’t work for me.”
This experience can be incredibly disheartening. But it’s important to understand that therapy for mental health — like many medical treatments — often involves trial and error.
What resonates deeply with one individual may feel irrelevant or even uncomfortable to another. For therapy to be truly effective, it must align with a person’s core beliefs, cultural background, personal values, and lived experiences. This individualised therapy approach helps build trust, engagement, and ultimately, meaningful progress. Recognising that no single mental health treatment works for everyone is the first step toward healing.
Finding the right therapy can take time — and what works for one person may not be effective for another. Especially when dealing with complex mental health conditions or treatment-resistant depression, a more personalised and adaptive approach is often required.
In this article, we’ll explore alternative therapy options — including lesser-known psychotherapies and cutting-edge techniques like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Whether you’re navigating chronic depression, trauma, OCD, or generalised anxiety that hasn’t responded to standard interventions, there may still be a path forward — it just might not be the one you first expected.
Psychodynamic Therapy
An insight-oriented approach, psychodynamic therapy can be beneficial for individuals dealing with chronic depression, unresolved trauma, attachment issues, and long-standing emotional difficulties. It explores unconscious patterns, often formed in childhood, that influence present-day emotions and behaviours.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
DBT therapy is a highly structured method particularly effective for people experiencing emotional dysregulation, self-harm, trauma-related disorders, and borderline personality disorder. It offers skills-based tools for managing emotions, enhancing interpersonal relationships, and reducing impulsive behaviour.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT therapy is a powerful model that focuses on psychological flexibility, making it ideal for individuals living with anxiety, OCD, depression, or chronic illness. It’s a practical, values-driven alternative for those who want to live meaningfully even in the presence of ongoing challenges.
Somatic Therapy
When trauma is stored in the body, somatic therapy for PTSD or chronic stress can be highly effective. This body-based approach works particularly well for clients with dissociation, chronic fatigue, nervous system dysregulation, or those who feel talk therapy hasn’t addressed their embodied symptoms.
Schema Therapy
Used for treating personality disorders, long-term depression, and self-defeating patterns, schema therapy helps clients heal deeply rooted emotional beliefs formed in early life. It’s often considered a go-to option for those who feel traditional CBT hasn’t gone deep enough.
Integrative Psychotherapy
Rather than sticking to one model, integrative therapy blends approaches (CBT, somatic, psychodynamic, etc.) based on the client’s specific needs. This flexibility makes it useful for complex trauma, co-occurring disorders, and people who haven't responded to structured methods alone.
Transpersonal Psychotherapy
This spiritually informed approach is ideal for people navigating existential depression, spiritual crises, or a desire for greater meaning beyond symptom relief. It incorporates techniques like breathwork, meditation, and mindfulness-based therapy.
Psychoanalysis
While more long-term, psychoanalysis offers profound insight into unconscious conflicts, particularly beneficial for clients seeking deep change or those with recurrent relational patterns, identity confusion, or emotional numbness.
Person-Centred Therapy
For individuals needing a non-directive, safe space to explore their emotions, person-centred therapy can be powerful. It supports self-esteem, emotional regulation, and personal growth, especially in those who’ve experienced invalidation or relational trauma.
At Smart TMS, we often work with individuals who have tried multiple therapeutic models without success. For many of them, adding Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) has been the missing piece.
TMS therapy is a non-invasive, neuromodulation treatment for depression and other mood disorders. It uses magnetic pulses to stimulate areas of the brain that are underactive in conditions such as major depressive disorder (MDD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, and PTSD.
What makes TMS for treatment-resistant depression so effective is that it works directly on brain circuitry — not just symptoms — and does so without medication. That means fewer side effects and a viable option for those who haven't responded to antidepressants or psychotherapy alone.
At Smart TMS, we understand that healing is not linear. If you've tried therapy in the past and it didn’t help, that doesn’t mean therapy doesn’t work — it may simply be time to try an approach that aligns more closely with your needs, values, and nervous system.
Therapy isn’t about forcing yourself into a mould. It’s about discovering what helps you feel safe, understood, and empowered to grow. Whether that’s through somatic therapy, emotionally focused psychotherapy, or advanced mental health treatments like TMS, there’s always a way forward.
🧠 Still struggling with mental health despite therapy?
Explore whether Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) could be your next step.