D.O. Counselling & Psychotherapy
Counselling and confidentiality
Person Centred Counselling and Psychotherapy, are umbrella terms, which cover a range of talking therapies. While there are large areas of overlap between the two, counselling usually refers to shorter-term therapeutic support for those who are dealing with a particular difficulty or issue, whereas psychotherapy mainly refers to longer-term, deeper psychological work that may be more long-standing. The term ‘therapist’ is used to refer to both counsellor and psychotherapist.
As a Counsellor/Psychotherapist, I am specially trained to listen and read non-verbal clues, which helps to further understand what is going on for you.
Person centred therapy can be for anyone, helping to gain more self-confidence, a stronger sense of identity, and the ability to build healthy interpersonal relationships and to trust his or her own decisions.
An integrative approach is a combination with other types of therapy, such as Psychodynamic, CBT & DBT. This can all be helpful for those who suffer from grief, depression, anxiety, stress, abuse, or other mental health conditions. Each person is unique and using an integrative approach allows me to select insights and ideas from different models that might fit best to your individual needs.
Your sessions are designed to give you the opportunity to help you make sense of your feelings in a safe and confidential space. I will manage and nurture our relationship, ensuring a professional duty of care at all times. For your peace of mind, I work to a strict code of conduct and adhere to the BACP code of ethics, which ensures that our relationship remains ethical and professional at all times.
Your initial counselling appointment is £30.00 and will last about one hour.
This will give us the opportunity to discuss your current situation, the reasons why you would like to have counselling and whether you have any future goals that you wish to work towards in therapy. We will look at your preferred appointment time, confidentiality and the counselling fees.
The discussion we have during your initial counselling appointment will form the basis of a counselling agreement. This counselling agreement is a written contract which summarizes what has been discussed between us verbally and contains your personal details, information about confidentiality, safeguarding, payment details and agreement about terms and conditions, this can be reviewed throughout the counselling process.
I will give you a copy of the counselling agreement during your initial appointment which you can take away to look at. You can either fill in your details prior to counselling or we will do it together at your first full counselling session.
You can download a copy of our counselling agreement
Confidentiality is important to me and i may take notes during or after our session, these are kept anonymous and separately, name/email address for 7 years after your last session, in line with the requirements of my professional insurance.
General data protection regulation GDPR information
This statement details how I collect, store or share/process your personal data.
What information do I collect?
From the Client:
• Name
• Contact number
• Address
What do I use this information for?
This client information is used as contact information while you are in counselling.
Do I share/store your personal data?
I only use your data in relation to the delivery of my services, and do not use it for marketing purposes or sell to third parties. There are very specific limited counselling reasons why I may need to share/process your data.
Legitimate interest
1. It may become necessary during our work together for us to break confidentiality for safeguarding reasons, serious harm to self or others, acts of terrorism or drug trafficking/money laundering. The personal data shared will be adequate and proportionate eg the minimum required. Your information may be shared with health professionals & emergency services as appropriate. This will be discussed with you first.
Legal obligation
1. I may be required to share information in your notes if I am issued with a court order.
2. I might keep anonymous notes from our sessions in line with the requirements of my professional insurance and the limitation act. Special category data 9 (f) processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.
3. I am required to keep financial records for the purpose of tax returns for 7 years.
Consent
1. If you ask us to share your notes/information with other medical professionals or your legal representative.
2. If you choose to continue with counselling, we keep client notes that are anonymous and separately name/email address for 7 years after your last session in line with the requirements of our professional insurance.
All information is stored as confidential data in locked storage, password protected document and destroyed at the end of the data retention period as confidential waste.
If you have any concerns about how I have used your data you can discuss it with me in the first instance if you feel able to.
This privacy statement is kept under regular review. November 1st 2023
