Our Contract

You only have to complete this once.

Your data

When you make an appointment, I know your name and your email address. That is the only personal information that I need so that we can get together – so it is the only information that I ask for. I keep your name so that I know it’s you and the email address in case we need to get in touch with each other. 

I’m required by the BACP code of ethics to keep notes and for the notes to be accurate and appropriate. I keep a short note of our sessions, usually a few sentences, that summarise the main topics and areas that we spoke about. The notes will never include names of other people or analysis of what you’ve said.

All of your data is kept on a private Google Drive, that only I have access to.

Our sessions are confidential and the only person I will talk with about them is my clinical supervisor (Tracy Clark), who is bound by the same confidentiality. If I do talk to her about our sessions, I would be doing this as part of a process to assess my own practice. I meet with Tracy once a month and if you have any concerns or compliments about my practice that you don’t feel able to share with me, you can email her on tracy@tracyaclarkcounselling.co.uk

Looking after you and other people

If there is a point during our conversation where I think you or someone else are at risk of immediate harm, I will say so. When that is the case, for example if you tell me things that sound like a specific plan to complete suicide or the abuse of a child, I’ll slow us down to make sure we are both understanding what is happening.

This is one of the two circumstances (the other is below) where I’ll choose the focus of the conversation. That’s because I don’t want have this information and do nothing with it.  

We might stop the session and talk together about who else needs to come into the conversation – that could be a doctor, the police, a person who cares for you or someone else. Then we will bring them into the conversation. I’ll work really hard to make sure we do this together and to to give you opportunities to be involved in the process of keeping yourself and other people safe.

Keeping right by the law

If you tell me about the ongoing abuse of a child, money laundering or a terrorist plot – I am compelled to tell the police. I will face criminal charges and lose my accreditation if I don’t pass information on - and I am not willing to do that. If these things come up, you will always know that I am going to take the information elsewhere because I’ll slow the conversation down and check what I have heard with you. The law is clear that I do not need your consent or permission to break the confidence we have in these instances. I’ll still work hard to make sure that you know everything that is going on in the event that this happened.

Social Media

I won’t follow you on social media and there are three main reasons for that. The first is that it risks your confidentiality, in a way that you might not realise or agree too. The second is that I want to understand you on the basis of what we talk about in the therapy space that we have together. The third is that creating new links brings the potential for the parameters of our relationship to become unclear - when your therapy pauses or stops, our relationship does too.

Practicalities

If we’re having a session online, you should receive a calendar invite that contains a Google Meet link. I’ll be there a couple of minutes before to make sure everything is working and contact you by email as soon as I can if there are any technical issues. You’ll be in the waiting room first, so that I can make sure it’s only us in the room.

If the session is in person, I’ll meet you in the main atrium area of the Tannahill Centre a couple of minutes before we start. The main atrium is a vast space with lots of tables and chairs, plants and amphitheatre style seating. Take a seat on the amphitheatre seats and I’ll know it’s you – you’ll see me coming from the double doors next to the Tannahill Centre reception desk.

Cancellation

I don’t expect you to never cancel appointments and I don’t expect you to give me a reason for the cancellation.

Things happen last minute that make us change our priorities and I get that. When something is cancelled at short notice, I’m unlikely to be able to use the time that you booked and I’ll have had to do administrative work to make the session happen. That’s why, if you cancel 48 hours or less before our session, I won't refund the money you paid or roll it over into a rescheduled sessions.

To agree to this contract, please fill in your details below. If you haven’t completed this, I will contact you before our session to let you know. Our session won’t go ahead until I have confirmation that you agree to the contract.