Fees & Terms

Therapy Sessions

Therapy sessions are provided online only via the Zoom platform. Please ensure that you are in a private space with a good internet connection for your appointments. If possible, please use a laptop or tablet for your sessions, since these provide a better means for viewing documents together where needed. Appointments are usually provided on a recurring basis at the same time each week at the frequency agreed upon. Since my diary is usually full, please ensure that you give me as much advance notice as possible if you need to change the time or day of your appointment. 

Attendance for therapy sessions

Regular attendance is required in order for you to benefit from therapy. Please ensure that you attend for your sessions regularly and on time. Sessions usually last 60 minutes. If you are running late, please email me to let me know when you expect to be able to join. If you are able to give me some notice that you are running late, I will try to accommodate from my side if possible. Unless I hear from you that you are running late, I will wait for you to join your session for 10 minutes,  After that point, if you haven’t contacted or joined the session, I will hang up the call. Sessions that are not attended are charged in full. If you have missed a session, please contact me via email to explain what happened. Therapy may be discontinued if you do not attend regularly for appointments.

 Therapist attendance for sessions

I will attend your therapy sessions except when I am unavailable due to holiday, sickness or other unforeseen circumstances. I will try to ensure that you have good notice of when I unavailable due to holidays. Where I am sick or otherwise unable to attend the session, I will inform you as soon as possible via email, and endeavour to see you as soon as I am able to upon recovery. In most circumstances I am unlikely to be able to see you until our next scheduled appointment. 

 Cancellations

Please give me as much notice as you can if you are unable to attend your appointment. Some cancellations are foreseeable, such as when you are going on holiday or have another planned commitment. Cancellations will be accepted without charge when notice of at least 48 hours is provided. Late cancellations may be accepted without charge at my discretion, if you have an urgent reason and this is not a frequent occurrence. I ask clients to attend for at least 80% of scheduled appointments. If you cancel more frequently than that, and you would like to maintain your scheduled therapy, I may ask you to pay for the scheduled slot, regardless of whether you can attend. Therapy may be discontinued if you frequently cancel. 

Payment of Fees

All payments should be made via direct bank transfer only to our company account. We do not accept payment by cash / cheque. Fees for therapy are billed at the end of each calendar month via email invoice. Please ensure that all payments are made via U.K. bank transfer: PayPal is only provided for international clients. Please pay only the amount that is invoiced. If I may have made a mistake with your bill, please contact me by email to query this. I appreciate it when invoices are settled promptly, within a few days of receipt. Please ensure that invoices are settled no later than 28 days after the invoice date. If fees for therapy become overdue, you will be asked to settle all outstanding payments before therapy may proceed. Therapy may be discontinued if you do not pay on time.

Communications between sessions

Please use email only for necessary communications between sessions. Email therapy is not provided: it is used for logistical purposes – arranging appointments, sending and receiving questionnaires and forms, and for quick queries. Please refrain from using email for significant communications: these should be brought to therapy sessions.  

Therapy Recordings

Recordings of your session can be provided as a means of reviewing your therapy between sessions, helping you to get the most out of each appointment. Therapy sessions will only be recorded with your explicit verbal consent. On occasion, I may suggest that we record a particular intervention for you to listen to between sessions, to enable you to gain fresh perspectives and reinforce therapeutic benefits. Occasionally I may request to record your session for the purpose of my clinical supervision. There is no obligation to consent to recordings: it will not affect your therapy if you prefer not to.

Therapy recordings may be made direct to your laptop where you have the facility to store them. Therapy recordings are provided to you for your sole use: I do not recommend that you share recordings with anyone. You are responsible for keeping any recordings safe and secure at your end. Alternatively, therapy recordings can be stored securely by me on the Zoom Cloud. You may access the recording via a link and password that I will provide to you. Should you wish to keep a cloud recording, you may download that to keep. I delete all cloud recordings on a regular monthly basis.

Notes

I keep records of therapy for the purpose of delivering safe and effective interventions. Therapy notes are not taken for purposes other than for the delivery of therapy. All records, including session notes, questionnaires and forms are stored electronically only, on an encrypted hard drive which may only be accessed by me – save in the circumstances set out in my clinical will. I am required to keep records for 7 years, after which time they will be securely deleted.

Risk

You are responsible for ensuring your safety and that of other people throughout the course of your therapy. If needed, we may discuss steps that you need to take to ensure that you develop healthy coping strategies and manage any foreseeable risks. I may ask you to get additional help by disclosing how you feel to people in your support network and, where needed, with other professionals. Therapy may be discontinued if you are not willing or able to manage any risks to your welfare.

Confidentiality

The contents of therapy sessions are confidential, i.e. between us alone, except for the following circumstances:

• In the rare event that I am concerned about your immediate welfare, and you are unwilling or unable to manage your safety independently, I may need to break your confidentiality in order to ensure your safety. In such circumstances I would discuss my concerns with you first and make you aware how I proposed to proceed. In most cases this would involve contacting the additional contact person you have named on the Initial Consultation Request Form.

• Details of your therapy may be discussed with my supervisor for the purpose of my receiving clinical supervision. This is standard practice for all psychotherapists and is designed to ensure the safe and effective delivery of therapy. 

Legal Involvement

Please note that I do not provide therapy for the sole or partial purpose of satisfying another party that you have engaged in therapy. In particular, I do not provide therapy at the request of a court, solicitor or involved social worker.

Multi-disciplinary Involvement

Please note also that I do not become involved in providing therapy for individuals where a multi-disciplinary team is involved in the co-ordinated delivery of your mental health care.

Reports

Report writing is not included in the fees for therapy. Reports may be provided at your request, and may be provided for medical / psychiatric purposes only. Please note that we do not provide reports for legal scrutiny. 

Short reports – 2 pages of A4 or less – £400

Longer reports – up to 6 pages of A4 – £1000