Terms and Conditions

Unless otherwise agreed all clients will be offered once weekly psychotherapy for up to two years.

The therapy will be reviewed by the therapist and the client within the first year and if it is agreed that it remains purposeful it may continue into the second year. If not it will be ended within three months.

Only in exceptional circumstances, and where there is a clear clinical need, will any client be offered therapy of more than two years duration.

Your appointments will be on the same day, at the same time and with the same therapist each week.

Each therapy session will last for 50 minutes, beginning and ending on time.

We expect you to attend all scheduled appointments unless you are:-

·  too ill to come,

·  are on a holiday that you have notified us about,

·  or have to deal with a sudden emergency which requires you to be elsewhere at the time of your session.

You must pay for all your scheduled appointments whether or not you attend them. 

You will not be required to pay for sessions when your therapist is unavailable.

Missed sessions will not be re-arranged. 

Please ring the office if you are unable to attend your session.  Similarly, you will be contacted by a member of staff at Share if your therapist has to cancel. 

If you miss two consecutive sessions and do not notify us about either of them we will assume you no longer wish to continue with your therapy.

Contributions towards the cost of therapy are paid for at the first session of each month. Payment can be made either by cheque or cash. Please note that we are unable to accept debit or credit cards or to give change.

If your circumstances change in a way that affects your contribution to therapy, for example job loss, or alternatively, acquisition of capital, please let us know as this will affect the level of contribution paid.

In addition to your planned holidays, there will be breaks in therapy at Christmas, Easter when Share is closed and other dates when your therapist is unavailable.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure the therapy space is free from interruption or intrusion. 

We ask that you respect the therapy space and privacy of others by turning your mobile phone off before entering the building.

Excessive use of drugs and/or alcohol will interfere with therapy and the session will be abandoned should you arrive drunk, high or too agitated, and thus unable to think.

Your therapy is confidential but if you were referred to us we will keep the referrer informed about the beginning and end of your therapy.

Our service uses routine clinical audit and your therapist will periodically give you questionnaires to fill in during the course of therapy.

Therapy has risks as well as benefits. We make it a condition of acceptance for therapy that should you have any thoughts or plans to kill yourself you agree to discuss these with your therapist rather than act upon them.

Confidentiality

In all forms of psychotherapy the relationship between therapist and client is based on trust. In practice, this means that what the client says will be treated as confidential, although other health professional’s involved in treatment - your GP, for instance –may be informed of progress.

Very occasionally it may be necessary to inform other people of things you have discussed or disclosed in therapy; if, for example, the therapist considers the client or another person may be at risk of harm. If you would like this eventuality to be explained in more detail please ask.