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Online Therapy

Important information and Frequently Asked Questions

 

online therapy graphic

Important information and Frequently Asked Questions

• It is important to identify a quiet private space, protected from possible disturbance (for example away from other family members, children, pets etc.).
• Position your webcam in a way that the therapist can see you. If you are attending as part of a couple, it is important that your therapist can see you both well (ideally from the waist up) and that there is adequate lighting in front of you so that your face is not in the shadow (desk light or perhaps window).
• Try to reduce the source of light from behind you as it will make it harder for the therapist to see you. He or she will be doing the same.
• Working in therapy remotely may feel a little odd at first, but we work this way with many couples and individuals and can reassure you, it settles down quickly and
starts to feel more normal.

zoom

• Check your video and audio quality and make sure you have the e-mail link ready before the session (See Technical Guide).

Download Technical Guide here:

techicon

If you are prompted to complete the questionnaires, please do so by clicking on the link in your confirmation email and entering your unique personal identification number and your unique couple identification number. The questionnaires will take approximately 10 minutes to complete and it is important that these are completed prior to your session.

• Please read the service agreement carefully; please note that by going ahead with the session you accept and agree to the content of the service agreement.

Fee Structure

Tavistock Relationships is a charity, aiming to provide therapeutic help for people whatever their income. For UK based clients, who are seen in our general clinical
services, there is no minimum fee. The maximum fee is £180 for ongoing sessions.Your fee will be discussed with you by the therapist at your initial appointment.

Our intention is to work out a fee which takes into account your capacity to pay and your wider circumstances. We suggest as a starting point for thinking about this, a calculation of £2 per £1000 of shared gross income – so, for example, a couple who together earn £40 000 would pay approximately £80 per week. However, this is only a guide and financial constraints should not stop you from accessing our services.

We will usually ask you to pay a higher fee for your initial appointment than the fee you agree for your ongoing sessions, reflecting the longer time we spend at this point in order to make sure you get the help that you need. There is no minimum fee for this initial appointment and the maximum fee is £200. The deposit you have paid in advance of your initial appointment will be deducted from the total fee you agree for the appointment.

Please note that some specialised services may have a fixed fee, or may have a higher minimum fee.

International clients

Given the high volume of work and expenses in delivering safe clinical sessions internationally online, the fee range for international clients is £100 to £200.

Process of Payment

Once you and the therapist agree to continue with ongoing weekly counselling sessions, session fees are payable in advance of each session.

If you prefer to pay monthly in advance, please do let us know.Payment is usually made via PayPal and can be paid by credit or debit cards or by a PayPal
account. If you would like to set up a standing order for your fees please contact us on 0207 380 1960.

Cancellations and Therapist Holidays

Because your therapy is a regular weekly session which is reserved just for you, we  have to charge if you miss or cancel a session. If the therapist cancels a session for any reason, of course you are not charged. The therapist will give you advance notice of any  upcoming breaks or holidays they are taking, which for the most part you should expect  will be at Christmas, Easter and during the summer period. If the session did not go ahead due to technical reasons not related to you the session then you would not charge and the fee paid is rolled over to the week after.

Deposits

Please note; deposits are non-refundable and non-transferrable

What kind of things will be discussed in the initial appointment?

The initial consultation is aimed at giving you space to think with your therapist about your situation and the way forward. Before the appointment it might be useful to think about your situation and how you want counselling or psychotherapy to help.

What has led you to seek help? What are the things you wish to change? Are there repeating patterns in your relationships that are causing you problems? Is online therapy the right way forward? These sorts of questions will be explored with you at your first appointment.

What happens after your Initial Appointment?

Towards the end of the initial consultation the therapist will usually discuss with you the way forward. This may be an offer to continue with ongoing weekly meetings, or sometimes the therapist may offer one more consultation meeting before making a decision about the way forward.

Sometimes, the therapist may take some time following the initial appointment to consider whether online therapy is a suitable option. If online therapy is suitable, you will receive confirmation of this after your initial meeting. Subsequent meetings will normally take place at the same time on a weekly basis. It is rarely possible to move the time or day of the session once you’ve started. Any sessions you have to cancel or miss need to be paid for at your agreed fee.

If online therapy is not considered suitable in your case, we will try to recommend more suitable options that you might then wish to explore.

Do Tavistock Relationships counsellors and psychotherapists have special training?

Yes. Tavistock Relationships is a centre of excellence for accredited training and research in couple relationships. Our counsellors and psychotherapists bring a wealth of clinical experience from a variety of related settings including social work and clinical psychology, and many have experience in working with individuals as well as couples. All our online therapists are experienced couple therapists who trained with us, and have substantial further supervised practice. Our courses offer the highest standards of professional training in counselling and psychotherapy with couples in the UK and worldwide.

Which online software do you work with?

Tavistock Relationships offers online couple and individual therapy via the ZOOM platform which is a secure, confidential and reliable video software. It will allow you to interact with the practitioner in a safe and consistent manner. Please refer to the technical guide titled Using Zoom and Accessing Your Online Therapy Meeting. Further details about Zoom’s security features are available at: https://d24cgw3uvb9a9h.cloudfront.net/static/57124/doc/ZoomSecurity-White-Paper.pdf

Representation

We value representation from couples and individuals who have finished their therapy on our Service Users’ Group. This group provides invaluable help in developing our services and policies. If you are interested in contributing in this way, please either complete the relevant box in the questionnaire, which we will send you when you finish your therapy, or let us know by contacting the Appointments Team.

If you have more questions that we have not covered above please do contact our team and we will be happy to help.

 

Service Agreement (Online Therapy) 

 

UK and International Online therapy

Legal Terms of Offer

In accepting the Tavistock Relationships’ offer of webcam based online therapy you accept that the service is governed by English Law irrespective of the country in which the client/s is/are based. Any disputes or disagreements arising from the provision of services under the terms of this engagement will be dealt with accordingly.

Our offer of an online therapy service to clients outside of the UK may be restricted due to considerations including legal, regulatory and privacy concerns.

Privacy

Tavistock Relationships offers online couple and individual therapy via the ZOOM platform which is a secure, confidential and reliable video software platform. Please familiarise yourself with the technical information provided and prepare for the session so you are ready to start on time.

Although Tavistock Relationships aims to provide the highest practical levels of client confidentiality protection by using end to end encryption and only utilising services that are HIPAA compliant, we regret we are unable to guarantee complete confidentiality under all circumstances. Monitoring or intrusion by state agencies or by computer service providers operating under state direction may in certain jurisdictions pose a threat to client confidentiality. If you feel you may be at risk, you may wish to consider receiving counselling through more traditional methods.

Computer systems are typically designed to share information with others and often ask you to trade convenience for confidentiality. If you are concerned about your privacy we would suggest that you only use private secured networks when possible and avoid shared connections. Turn off or disable any unnecessary applications, particularly those that may frequently connect to the internet and ensure that your computer is regularly checked for computer viruses and spyware.

Further information about online security can be found on the Information Commissioners Office, Website https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/

Therapy sessions should take place in a private setting so as to ensure conversations are not overheard. In the event the therapist deems the setting to not be sufficiently private, the session will be terminated and fees may still be due. Recording sessions without the explicit consent of both therapist and the client/s will be considered as breach of this service agreement.

Updated: March 2020

Payment Arrangements

Tavistock Relationships is a charity, aiming to provide therapeutic help for people whatever their income. For UK based clients who are seen in our general clinical services there is no minimum though there is a maximum fee of £180 for ongoing sessions. Your fee will be discussed with you by the therapist at your initial appointment. Our intention is to work out a fee which takes into account your capacity to pay and your wider circumstances. We suggest as a starting point for thinking about this, a calculation of £2 per £1000 of shared gross income – so, for example, a couple who together earn £40 000 would pay approximately £80 per wee However, this is only a guide and you will have a discussion with your therapist regarding what is affordable.

For your initial consultation, we ask you to pay a deposit at the time of booking the appointment. This will be deducted from the total fee you agree with your therapist for the consultation appointment and the remainder of the fee will be invoiced to you.

Please note that deposits for initial assessment appointments are non-refundable in the event you are no longer able to attend your booked consultation

We will usually ask you to pay a higher fee for your initial appointment than the fee you agree for your ongoing sessions, reflecting the longer time we spend at this point in order to make sure you get the help that you need. There is no minimum fee for this initial appointment and the maximum fee is £200. The deposit you have paid in advance of your initial appointment will be deducted from the total fee you agree for the appointment.

Please note that some specialised services may have a fixed fee, or may have a higher minimum fee.

International clients

Given the high volume of work and expenses in delivering safe clinical sessions internationally online, the fee range for international clients is £100 to £200.

Process of Payment

Once you and the therapist agree to continue with ongoing weekly counselling, session fees are payable in advance of each session.

If you prefer to pay monthly, in advance, please do let us know.

Payment is usually made via PayPal and can be paid by credit or debit cards or by a PayPal account. If you would like to set up a standing order for your fees please contact us on 0207 380 1960. If you prefer to pay monthly in advance this can be arranged. Please discuss this with your therapist.

Weekly Sessions

Online therapy sessions are offered weekly and generally will take place at the same day and time.This consistency and regularity of session times is an important aspect of the therapy process.

Updated: March 2020

Cancellations and Missed appointment

Paying for your appointments even on occasions when you are unable to come is necessary so that we can sustain our offer to provide regular weekly sessions. The therapy requires a regular commitment that you can rely upon over time. In order to provide such a reliable framework we offer appointments at the same time on the same day each week. This means that we reserve a weekly slot with a dedicated therapist and consulting room for you. When you cancel a session, this
slot cannot be offered to anyone else. In this sense, it is a bit like renting a room, in so far as it is your time with your therapist and cannot be made available for any other client.

Of course, if due to unexpected illness or planned holidays, your therapist is not able to be there, we will not charge you and the pre-paid fees will either be refunded or credited again the next invoice.We do try our best to set your fees at a level that you can realistically afford and budget for on a weekly basis. If you would like to know more about our sliding scale approach, please see a fuller explanation in the ‘Fee Structure’ section of this document.

Technical Problems

Should either party experience technical difficulties, we both endeavour to email straight away and/or try to reconnect online as soon as possible. If overall, more than 15 minutes of the sessions has not occurred due to therapistrelated technical problems we will offer to supplement this time, and if this is not possible, we will agree a reduced rate for that session in proportion to the service received.

Clinical Emergency

The Tavistock Relationships’ webcam based online counselling and psychotherapy is aimed at helping clients with their relationship. It is not possible for online therapy sessions to help in the event of clinical emergency. In any case of clinical emergency, severe distress, and other more urgent mental health difficulties clients must contact their GP, the local medical emergency services, and/or any other local services as appropriate to their difficulties. You will be required to provide
with details of your local medical practitioner in order to access our online therapy service.

Before the initial consultation:
• New clients are asked to complete the intake questionnaires via the link provided at least 48 hours prior to your consultation appointment
• Please ensure you have your appointment email with details as how to access your session close at hand
• Launch the Zoom application and login a few minutes prior to the scheduled start time of your session.

In the initial consultation the therapist you see will explore your current difficulties and think with you about how to proceed. We will want to ensure that your situation is best suited to having online therapy. However online therapy is not always suitable and in such cases we will try to recommend more suitable options that you might then wish to explore.

Updated: March 2020

Following the initial consultation the therapist will consider carefully about the way forward. We aill then contact you to let you know the next step. If Tavistock Relationshipsis able to offer ongoing therapy you will receive confirmation of this. Subsequent meetings will normally take place at the same time as the first on a weekly basis.

Confidentiality

Tavistock Relationships adheres to a professional code of ethical standards which includes the principle of confidentiality. This means that we would not disclose information about you to a third party without your agreement, except in situations where there was serious and significant concern about harm to you or someone else and this would normally be discussed with you beforehand.

If you are seen as a couple we would normally expect that information can be shared between you.

If you have any questions about confidentiality you can discuss them with your therapist.

Boundaries of therapy

Therapy sessions are offered every week at the same time. While the online framework provides a sense of ad-hoc connection, it is not appropriate to engage with your therapist through social networks in between sessions. Communication with the therapist in between sessions should be made through our appointmentsteam.

Feedback Forms and Outcome Monitoring

We seek to gather feedback about the effectiveness of our services and will ask you may be asked to complete some questionnaires at certain intervals during the course of your therapy. This will be done by sending you a link via an email, and we would be grateful if you could complete all questionnaires prior to the next session. The therapist will have access to your answers, and your answers will also be collated anonymously so we can look at how helpful our sessions are overall. If you have any questions about these forms, please speak to your therapist.

Access to Your Data

Tavistock Relationships is registered with the information commissioner and all personal data is processed and maintained in accordance with the Data Protection Act. For further information,please contact our Clinical Administration Team 0207 380 1960 or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Feedback and Complaints

If you are unhappy with the therapy you are receiving or with any other aspect of your contact with
Tavistock Relationships it may be helpful to discuss this with your therapist in the first instance. If
you would like to discuss your concerns with someone else, please let us know by contacting our
online team management at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For further information please see our FAQs factsheet and the FAQ on the website

 

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