Frequently Asked Questions

Sessions are 50 mins and are £110 per session. I offer one virtual session on a Saturday at £130 at midday.

I can meet with you in person or virtually via zoom or a mixture of both. I have therapy meeting spaces that I can use in Glynde, Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea, all in East Sussex.

I can meet with you from 9:15am until 4:00pm Thursdays and Fridays. I do offer some evening sessions and one Saturday session at 12 midday. So please get in contact if you want to discuss a time outside of the ones I have given.

Send an email to Lizzie@Togethertalkingtherapy.co.uk to find out my availability or fill out the form on the contact page.  You can request to meet for a free virtual 15 min session via Zoom prior to an initial assessment session.

A Clinical Psychologist is trained in evidence-based psychological therapies. Clinical Psychologists have a Dr title but are not medically trained. A Psychiatrist is medically trained, who then specialises in Psychiatry, they tend to work in diagnosis and treatment using a biological model such as medication, although some psychiatrists have been trained to offer talking therapy.

Ensuring that personal data is kept confidential is my priority. Therapy can often involve the disclosure of sensitive information, therefore it is essential that this remains confidential. People using Together Talking Therapy typically make contact via email. Your contact details will only ever be used to arrange appointments and communicate with you. Your contact information will never be used for any other reason and never shared with any other party without your consent and never used for marketing purposes. Information that you share in sessions will only be written in paper form and will not be saved electronically. Your paper notes will be anonymised and kept in a locked cabinet. Information will be shared with your permission to those involved in your care (such as Health Insurance Providers or GPs). You can request that I remove your paper file or electronic data from my records at any time. I may have to keep some information about the service I have provided to you on record for a certain amount of time due to my professional guidelines, but I will let you know about this. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, ICO and comply with their regulations for personal data.

I am a member of the Health and Care Professionals Council, HCPC and I sign up to a code of ethics. Part of that code ensures that I would only break your confidentiality if I was concerned that someone is at risk. The person at risk could be you or someone you have told me about. Typically, I will speak with you about sharing my concerns with other teams to keep you or someone else safe. People are understanding as to why other services need to be made aware of risk to self or others.

I would always encourage you in the first instance to approach me, if you had any concerns or complaints. Working through complaints in therapy can be really helpful and be applied to relationships outside of therapy, the process of rupture and repair is incredibly powerful. If you do not feel able to discuss your concern or complaint with me, please consider the type of complaint. If it is a complaint about my code of conduct, please contact my professional accreditation body, HCPC. By being registered with them, I have agreed to a set of code and
ethics and it is part of their job to ensure I always meet these code of ethics (which I would always expect to do). Alternatively, if you have a complaint about how your data has been handled, then please contact the ICO.

Yes you can. If you need to cancel your session, please email. If you cancel and give over 24 hours notice, your session will be fully refunded. If you do not give 24 hours notice, the session will be charged, however this will be your time, although you will not be engaging in the session, I will spend this time holding you in mind and focusing on our therapy so far.

As therapy is co-created with you, no two types of therapy will be similar. However, there is a structure to the sessions. Typically, the first two sessions are assessment sessions. During the third session, based on our assessment sessions we would co-construct a formulation. A formulation is a way of understanding what is going on in the present, by thinking about maintenance factors and driving (past) factors. This formulation would then provide you with goals for therapy and a treatment plan. We would then review therapy after six sessions to ensure we are working on your identified goals and that therapy is feeling helpful. Sessions are not limited, but therapy will be regularly reviewed. Additionally, assessment, formulation and treatment are not linear and the formulation and therapy goals may change as therapy progresses.

This is something that you can consider in your initial sessions. You do not need to sign up to a minimum number of sessions, but can decide session-by-session.

Therapy can make people feel worse. We have learnt ways of coping the best we can, changing these ways of coping can be really challenging. When someone first starts exercising, their muscles will experience a degree of pain and this is the same for our minds. If therapy is making you worse to the point of impacting on your day-to-day functioning, this would be unhelpful. Again, this would be important to discuss in your initial session to think how you can make use of therapy in a safe way.

A Clinical Psychologist is a qualified and trained professional who specialises in assessing and treating individuals experiencing emotional distress or mental health problems with evidence-based psychological (talking) therapies.

A Clinical Psychologist is a protected title, meaning only those with the appropriate training can call themselves a Clinical Psychologist. This ensures that all Clinical Psychologists have a high standard of training (minimum of six years to doctoral level) and relevant experience. They are trained to use multiple therapeutic models and this allows them to adapt therapy to meet the individual’s needs. The role Counsellor is not a protected title, this means anyone can call themselves a counsellor. Most counsellors have a significant amount of training, but not typically to doctoral level. Counsellors tend to be trained in one therapeutic model and take a more exploratory approach.

Although I have said that I am qualified and have included my doctorate certificate in my photos, it is always really important to independently check that a person is qualified. I am registered with HCPC, this means that the HCPC has checked my registration credentials and that I sign up to their code of ethics, and you can use the link here to check my HCPC accreditation. If you do not want to use the link, you can search for ‘HCPC Check the Register’. You can enter my surname and click onto Practitioner Psychologist and my details will be found.

Yes, I have professional and indemnity insurance with Towergate Insurance.

Yes, I receive monthly supervision, as part of my accreditation with the HCPC I have to have regular supervision. Supervision is designed to ensure that the therapy that we co-construct is evidence-based and helpful. I may talk about you with my supervisor, but I will anonymise your details to ensure that you and the difficulties I discuss remain confidential. My supervisor is an HCPC Clinical Psychologist, this means that they also sign up to a code of ethics and keep information discussed confidential and they are highly qualified.

Sessions need to be paid for in advance (a minimum of 48 hours in advance), but ideally at the point of making the appointment. I have a limited number of sessions and I will not be able to hold the session time for you unless you have paid. If you are having regular sessions, the future sessions will be automatically reserved for you without payment, as long as the session ahead is paid for. Payment can be made via internet bank transfer, cheque, cash or PayPal. I will provide a receipt for all methods of payment. If your sessions are funded by an Insurance Company different companies have different protocols, some ask for you to pay and claim this back with them, whilst others pay directly to Together Talking Therapy. Please let me know if your therapy is being funded by an insurance company.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

Carl P Rogers

The curious paradox is that when I accept
myself just as I am, then I can change.

Carl P Rogers