Frequently Asked Questions

We will usually have a brief discussion by phone or email – then get together for an hour or so to see if therapies can be of help – and if your therapist is the right fit for you. It is important that you feel comfortable with your therapist before you start working together. If so, you will make an agreement about how and when to start.

It is important to get the right therapist. We understands that this sometimes takes time.

Most people choose to come weekly however this is part of your initial discussion and may change during the course of therapy.

Unless you and your therapist have previously discussed it, what you speak about remains confidential. However, there are two legal exceptions:

• If there is a real risk that someone may harm themselves significantly, there is a duty of care to ensure that does not happen.

• If there is any risk to others – particularly to children – there is a legal obligation to prevent that happening and to report abuse of children.

These would usually be discussed and, hopefully, a plan of action can be agreed. Please see privacy notice for further details.

• That depends – but it is important to keep all therapies under review.

• Some people come with a specific issue to explore – which can be done in a time-limited therapy of 3-6 months.

• Others will choose to look at long-standing difficulties, which might take time to explore and remedy. Typically this might take 9-18 months.

• It is important that if either of you or your therapist cannot attend, advanced notice is given.

• There is no change for cancellations more than 24hr in advance – however cancellation less then 24 hours in advance will need to be paid in full.

Firstly, discuss this with your therapist, who is always interested to hear honest feedback and adapt their work accordingly. If this doesn’t resolve matters, you can contact the HCPC at www.hpc-uk.org. and Social Work England at www.socialworkengland.org.uk.

We are not able to offer a crisis service in private work, so if you are unable to keep yourself safe between sessions and/or are regularly engaging in very risky self-harming behaviours, it would usually be recommended that you seek input from your local NHS service. Please discuss this with your therapist if you are unsure whether it is relevant for you.

It might feel scary or uncertain to have some sessions online but they can be as effective as meeting face to face, so long as you follow the sensible tips below.  Our goal is to create a safe and contained space to work with you.  If there are some material/documents that we need to use for the sessions (e.g. when we am going through psychoeducation and mindfulness), we will make sure that we have emailed this through to you before the session.

Our current preferred online service is ZOOM.  This is an encrypted service and is free for you to access and download. You can download on your computer or phone.

If we are using ZOOM we will send you an email before the session which contains a link.  Please make sure I have the correct email before the session. When you open ZOOM, it will ask you to enter the meeting number so that you can join me.  Please do NOT join the meeting until the agreed time.