Frequently Asked Questions

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 Session fees are priced at £60 per fifty-minute session.

I am able to offer a range of appointment lengths where individuals may require additional time (e.g.) for those who may have specific communication needs. Session fees will then be priced accordingly.

Please contact me directly to discuss your requirements and the associated session fee. 

 The short answer is that this differs from person to person.

 The number of sessions you might need will depend upon what you feel you might want to get out of therapy. 

 Some people might come to therapy with specific goals and may want to work on a specific issue (e.g.) they may want to use 10 sessions to explore the impact of a bereavement [note that I have used an arbitrary figure here]. 

Some people may simply want to have open-ended therapy so that they can explore a range of issues and prioritize working through difficulties according to their individual needs. You may also know or suspect that you have experienced trauma (single event, multiple event or complex relational trauma, as examples). 

 The important thing is to be honest with yourself about what you might want from therapy so that you can manage your expectations and be kind to yourself during the time and with the resources available to you. I am committed to working safely, ethically and effectively. Please feel free to contact me to arrange an initial discussion

 Sessions typically last for 50 minutes and take place weekly. For clients undertaking long-term therapeutic work and where a therapeutic relationship has been established, this can change to fortnightly.

 I can offer sessions at a fixed time (the same time) each week. I also offer some flexibility if you work shifts and have a changing work pattern, subject to availability.

 At present, I offer sessions on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (morning only). I have limited face-to-face capacity. 

 Please contact me directly to enquire about weekend availability or if you have any specific questions about frequency.

 You can contact me with your initial enquiry either by text message, telephone or email. There is a voicemail facility on my contact line- if you are able to, please leave a message. Please be aware that I hold therapy sessions throughout my working day with my clients, so I may not be available to take a call or respond to messages immediately. I aim to respond promptly but this may take up to 48 hours on working days.

 I offer a free introductory discussion for potential new clients lasting for 20 minutes (30 minutes for a young person and parent/carer/guardian), which can take place either by telephone or by videocall (via Zoom). This will offer a chance for us to ask and answer any questions and to see whether you feel that you might like us to work together.

 If you decide that you would like to start therapy with me, I will ask you to read the therapy agreement (contract), and to sign and return a copy to me to confirm that you have understood and agree to the terms and conditions. Our first session together will involve a more detailed assessment where we will work collaboratively to gather information about your personal needs, history and what you might want to gain from therapy.

Please feel free to let me know your communication preferences (e.g.) phone call, text or email in the first instance.  

 Not everyone feels able to tell all of their story, all at once. Whilst I do complete an initial assessment with you to take a relevant personal history, I also understand that it can take time to build trust and to feel able to share all aspects of yourself. I aim to be sensitive and responsive to your individual needs.

 Please be reassured, we can work together to ensure that we work at a pace that feels comfortable and manageable, particularly if trauma is a part of your story.

  I require two full working days’ notice, during working hours (9am -5pm), otherwise you will be required to pay the full session fee to cover associated costs. 

  As per my cancellation policy, I require two full working days’ notice, during working hours (9am -5pm), otherwise you will be required to pay the full session fee to cover associated costs.

 I understand that unplanned events take place. However, the expectation is that you plan ahead to attend sessions promptly. The session will go ahead at our allotted time and you will be required to pay for the full session fee. Please be aware that due to my commitment to hold sessions as planned for all my clients, if you are late to the session it will not be possible to make up the missed time after the allotted session time (e.g.) if you are 20 minutes late, it will not be possible to begin at your arrival time and extend the session by 20 minutes.

 This is an excellent question and one that I will try my best to give an honest answer to. 

 The right therapist for you is likely to be the therapist that you feel most comfortable talking to. Therapy does require active work- you will explore aspects of your emotional world that may feel difficult to think or talk about. It is important that you feel you can share this with someone that can support you to feel at ease and that you feel able to be vulnerable with. It is my belief that a good working relationship can offer a great foundation for therapeutic work and research has consistently shown that it is not necessary modality that offers the best outcomes to clients in therapy- the relationship is key.

 If you have the time and capacity, I suggest you do a bit of research to see which types of therapy (therapy modalities) are available and which might be of interest to you. Have a look around the therapist directories and see which therapist profiles speak to you the most. Many therapists offer an initial consultation that might be free of charge. Use the opportunity if it is available to ask questions and see if you feel comfortable talking to the person in question. 

  The terms counselling and psychotherapy are often used interchangeably. I have used the term ‘therapy’ to keep things simple and to encompass both. 

 In the past, counselling was thought to offer support with a specific focus, in the short-term and psychotherapy was proposed to offer support in the long-term, working at greater depth. Additionally, therapists often have different training in the type of therapy they offer (i.e.) their therapy modality, so this may influence which term is used.

The content of our sessions is confidential, meaning that I do not share who my clients are with other people or talk about the things they have shared during their sessions with other people. I take anonymized case work to my clinical supervisor. This is a requirement of my professional body, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). They won’t know who you are. I discuss my case work to ensure the quality of my work and that I continue to work ethically and safely.

Examples of exceptions to confidentiality are as follows:

· If I consider that you are at risk of immediate or serious harm.

· You share that you are at risk of harm by another person.

· You share that you are a risk of harm to other people.

· You share that a child or vulnerable adult with care and support needs is at risk of abuse, harm or neglect.

· I may be required to provide the notes of our sessions to a member of the legal profession when presented with a warrant/court order.

· I am required by law to share information for detection and/or prevention of acts of terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering without client consent.

Where I am able to, I aim to discuss this transparently with you beforehand to involve you in the process and any decision making.

 You are welcome at my practice, however I think it is important that you have choice in who you would like to work with and that you think about whether therapy is right for you, at this time. 

 The content of our sessions will be confidential, meaning that I won’t be sharing all the detail that we speak about during our therapy sessions with your parent, carer or guardian. The only time that I will not be able to keep things confidential (i.e.) private, is if you share that you are at risk of harming yourself, you are at risk of harm by someone else or you are a risk of harm to someone else. Additionally, if you give me permission to share something specific with your parent/carer/guardian because you are finding it hard to find the words to share something personal, I can support you with this. I aim to involve you about any decisions made to share information about you, where this is possible. 

Please discuss with your parent/carer/guardian and we can arrange an introductory meeting. I can also answer any initial questions by email, if you feel this would be helpful to support you and your parent/carer/guardian.

 I am experienced in working with young people from age 16-18 years old, so my practice is open to them. It is understandable that your young person might feel anxious about undertaking therapy. Your young person needs to feel ready, willing and able to seek support and work on any difficulties that they are experiencing.

 They also need to feel like they have the right person to guide and support them through tricky spots, so they would need to feel comfortable to work with me and that we might be a good ‘fit’. I can offer an initial meeting of up to 30-minutes, with both of you, free of charge to see how they feel.

 Please note, the principle of confidentiality does still apply for your young person, so even if you are funding sessions, I am unable to share details of what they have discussed unless they give permission for me to do so or I feel that they are at risk of harming themselves in any way.

 I do require formal consent from a parent, carer or guardian to work with young people under the age of 18 years old.

 Firstly, I am sorry to hear that you may have had unhelpful and possibly invalidating experiences before. Thank you for reading this far and for exploring my website!

 If it helps you to know, I have personal experience of belonging to a multi-cultural, neurodivergent family and professional experience of working with people from a wide age range, diverse cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds, people with physical health conditions, visible and hidden disabilities and with a range of neurotypes. This includes people who may identify as being multiply marginalised (e.g.) Black and LGBTQIA+; LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent etc. I aim to work in an identify-affirming, neuro-affirming and trauma-informed way.

 I don’t claim to know everything about each and every person- this would just be impossible given that even people with community in-common, will have different human experiences, as well as shared experiences. Because of this, I try not to make assumptions about you based on the groups that you might belong to and I intend to meet you where you are, get to know you and connect with you, as a unique human being. I use clinical supervision to challenge my implicit biases and expand my ways of thinking about humans and my own role in managing my assumptions. My practice of relational therapy acknowledges that we humans occupy relative positions of power and privilege and recognizes the societal context within which we live. In short, I understand that the wider impact of systemic inequalities may contribute to and sustain your individual difficulties.

 Please have a think about what was unhelpful or what may have felt harmful to you in the past and lets have an open and transparent conversation about this, so that I have some knowledge of you as a person and any preferences you might have for how you are supported. I appreciate this might not be easy. It is never my intention to undermine or invalidate your individual experiences, so know that I am also open to being challenged or corrected. I tend to use ‘identity-first’ language but please let me know which language you prefer to use when referring to yourself and/or your community.

 Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you feel psychologically safe or if there is anything that we can do together to help make it easier for you to access our therapy sessions.