FAQ’s about counselling

“What happens when I make an enquiry?”

After you make an enquiry I will look to respond to you within 2 working days. We will arrange a free 15 minute phone call to discuss your enquiry, looking at what it is that you want to explore, our availability to make sure that we can meet regularly & consistently (this is important for our work together) and how best I can support you. From here we would look to book an initial session in which we will go through a counselling agreement and we will explore in more depth, what brings you to counselling.

If on the rare occasion that I am unable to support or accomodate you due to insufficient capacity, etc. then I will be more than happy to refer you onto a trusted colleague who may be able to work with you.

"What happens in a first session?"

In a first session we will go through a counselling agreement, this ensures that we’re both on the same wavelength and that we get a feel for how the sessions will look and how they will run. This agreement won’t take too long to go through and once it’s done we will continue on with the session, whereby we get to look at what brings you to therapy and you will also be able to ask questions about the process, how I work and how you’d like things to look moving forwards. My approach is flexible; so some people may want to set goals during this first session, they may want to give me some background information on what brought them to counselling, or they may want to use the session just to understand more about the process.

"How much does it cost?"

Sessions cost £65 per session and I ask for payment to be made 48 hours before the session. I also operate a 48 hour cancellation policy which we would go through in the first session. If you would like support but finances are an issue, then please get in touch and we can discuss this, as I do offer limited slots for concessions.

"Do you offer online sessions?"

Yes. I offer both in-person and online counselling, which means if you’re slightly outside of where I see clients in-person, or if travel/timings make things tricky to work in-person, then we can still work together online. Online sessions will take place over a secure, online platform - which at the moment I use a platform called Doxy.

"Is everything confidential?"

Yes, to a point. Everything that you say within the session remains confidential, unless I feel like you or someone else is at risk of serious and immediate harm. There is more nuance to this and this is something which we would explore together in the first session and as we work through the counselling agreement.

“How often should I come to counselling?”

Each person has their own set of unique circumstances which dictates how often they can attend counselling. Ideally, counselling sessions would take place at the same time each week, however, I am aware that due to financial, work and time constraints that this isn’t always possible. I am to be flexible in offering slots to people, but generally the more consistently you can attend counselling (once a week) is ideal.

“How many sessions will I need?”

There is no single; clear cut answer to this question. I offer anything from 6-12 sessions to open-ended counselling. The answer to this depends entirely on what you feel you want and need, 6-12 sessions could be useful for short term interventions to work on one specific issue, but this may also evoke other things that you’d look and hope to explore. We can work together to decide on a set number of sessions, or we can choose to work in an open ended way.