What to expect
Seeking mental health treatment can be daunting or confusing at a time when you may feel vulnerable. We’ve made our care pathway clear to help your journey towards better mental health.
Consultation call
15 minutes
This is a free 15-minute referral consultation and initial meeting on the phone with Sarah. During this call, you can share some information, find out whether assessment is worth pursuing and ask any questions about me, the treatments available and which location may be best for you.
Assessment
60 minutes
An hour-long assessment session gathers all the details of your past and present difficulties and provides an individualised formulation to guide treatment planning. I take into consideration NICE Guidelines and unique presenting symptoms. You will go through the therapist–patient psychotherapy contract and discuss Smart CBT+’s service terms.
Treatment
50 minutes per session
Sessions may use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Mindfulness. Your treatment is person centred and collaborative. The plan created at assessment may be updated as treatment moves forward, with decisions made together based on your response to treatment. You may like to experiment with your therapy location. Although a planned timeline will guide your treatment schedule, there are no time restrictions on you. Treatment length is often based on chronicity and severity of presenting symptoms, comorbidity and readiness to change.
Confidentiality
Smart CBT+ follows BABCP (the lead professional organisation for CBT in the UK) guidelines for confidentiality, which means that all information will be kept safe and confidential at all times, locked in a safe place and held for a minimum of seven years. Disclosure of information to others will only be made with your knowledge if you, or someone else, may be at risk of harm. A risk assessment may be necessary as part of sessions. Your consent to share this information depends on the nature of the disclosure.
Cancellation
If you need to change your appointment, please do so as soon as you can. If a session is cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, a holding fee of the agreed session price is payable on or before the next session.
Payment
Therapy sessions are normally 50-60 minutes in duration. Payment agreed at assessment is required before each session and latest at the end of each session, paid by BAC’s. if this is not possible please discuss with us. Should you require reports or letters to be written, then a charge of the full current hourly session rate per letter or report will normally apply.