What happens after you get in touch
1
Send your enquiry
Tell us briefly what has brought you here.
2
A psychologist reviews it
A Clinical Psychologist replies personally, usually within two working days.
3
Your free introductory conversation
Talk it through, ask questions and confirm your fee, with no cost or obligation.
4
Your full assessment
If you choose to continue, we book your assessment and standard questionnaires.
Your introductory conversation
Once your clinician has read your enquiry and confirmed we’re likely to be a good fit for what you need, we’ll arrange a free introductory conversation, at no cost and with no obligation. This is a chance to talk through what’s brought you here, ask any questions, and get a clear sense of how we’d work together before anything is booked.
Your full clinical psychology assessment
If you decide to go ahead, the next step is a full clinical psychology assessment lasting up to 90 minutes.
Your psychologist will ask about what has brought you to therapy, how the difficulty developed and what may be keeping it going, its effect on day-to-day life, relevant health and treatment history, current risks and supports, and what you would like to change. You’ll also complete a small number of standard questionnaires to help establish a clear starting point.
By the end of the assessment, your psychologist will talk through their formulation: a working explanation of the problem rather than a label for it. You’ll receive a clear recommendation about whether therapy is likely to help, the type of therapy they recommend and why, the goals you would work towards, how often you would meet, and a realistic estimate of treatment length. If another approach or service would suit you better, they’ll explain that openly.
A written assessment is not provided as standard, but can be arranged separately where needed.
How long treatment usually takes
Most people work with us for around 8 to 12 sessions, the same typical range NICE sets out for trauma-focused CBT, though this isn’t a fixed course. Some people need fewer; work involving repeated or long-standing trauma, or a long-term condition alongside other difficulties, often takes longer. Frequency and overall length depend on what the formulation points to, not a fixed programme.
Your clinician will give you a realistic estimate at assessment and review it with you as the work goes on. We agree the length of treatment with you rather than selling a fixed package.
Approaches we use
Your clinician draws on established, evidence-based approaches suited to your formulation.
What a session is like
Sessions typically begin with a short check-in and a collaborative agenda: you and your clinician agree together what’s most useful to focus on that day, rather than working through a fixed script. Your clinician will check in on how you found the previous session and revisit anything that’s changed since.
Most of the session is spent working through whatever’s most relevant: a specific memory, a pattern of avoidance, a fear tied to returning to work or driving again, or the pacing and values-based choices that come with living alongside persistent pain — whatever’s come up during the week. Your clinician will explain the reasoning behind what you’re doing together, rather than simply directing you through it.
Sessions usually close with a brief summary of what’s been covered and, where relevant, something small to notice or try before the next one. This isn’t homework in the school sense, and it’s not compulsory: your clinician will explain what it’s for, and it’s always something you’ve agreed to together.
We measure what’s happening
Every session, you’ll complete a brief measure (the CORE-10), taking a few minutes on your phone, tracking your wellbeing and how the working relationship with your clinician feels.
At the start and end of treatment, we add two longer measures, the CORE-OM and the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS), covering your wider wellbeing and how the difficulty is affecting daily life. As part of the initial assessment, you may also be asked to complete one or two further questionnaires that help build a fuller picture of your history; these aren’t repeated later in treatment.
This means you and your clinician can both see whether things are genuinely shifting, rather than relying on an impression of how the last fortnight felt. If the numbers aren’t moving, that’s a conversation we have openly, and a reason to reconsider what we’re doing.
Confidentiality, and its limits
What you tell us stays between you and your clinician. There are a small number of exceptions, and we would rather you knew them now than discovered them later.
If we believe you or someone else, particularly a child, is at serious risk of harm, we may need to share information with your GP or another service. Where therapy is connected to a legal claim, treatment records can sometimes be requested as part of that process.
Your clinician will explain all of this properly before you start. The same applies from your very first contact with us: if anything you tell us in an enquiry raises a safeguarding or risk concern, we will respond to it properly.
Ending
We’ll agree together when the work is done. You should always know why therapy is ending, not just that it has.