We all need help from other people, and at some intervals in our life we need a bit more help. People who come to therapy know when they need support and have the ability to recognise and try to meet their own emotional needs. Many people acknowledge that making time to meet their physical health needs, such as doing physical exercise and eating healthily, is necessary to maintain a balanced lifestyle but they often don’t realise that there are times where we also need to attend to our minds. Our minds can be the emotional and mental muscle that can get forgotten which is why sometimes we be more vulnerable to a build up of problems in our lives. Psychological therapy offers a professional relationship with someone who can help you work through problems and consider alternative strategies to cope with them.

It can be confusing to work out the difference between these mental health professionals as there is cross over between many of them in so far as they may be trained in working in specific therapies or from particular theoretical standpoints. 

Clinical Psychologists: Clinical psychologists require extensive, doctoral-level training to practice legally within the United Kingdom. In this regard ‘Clinical Psychologist’ is a legally protected title and indicates that those with this title have also completed a degree level qualification, and often a postgraduate qualification before completing their doctorate. The profession is regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and all Clinical Psychologists must have membership to the HCPC by law. They are trained in working with adults, children and young people and have experience of working in several different capacities as therapists, trainers, supervisors, mentors and consultants. They are able to work with a diverse range of issues including mental health, learning disability and physical health problems. They are also known to be good at detailed psychological assessments that increase understanding of an individual’s specific problems. The fundamental difference to other therapy professionals is that they are trained to draw from a wide range of scientific and evidence-based methods, including assessment measures and therapeutic models. They are trained at the highest level of education, experience and training. They may also offer active guidance and consultation to their clients.

Psychiatrists: are professionals with medical training who have chosen to specialise in mental health as opposed to another branch of medicine such as a surgeon, a GP or a dermatologist. Psychiatrists are most often responsible for the safe prescribing of psychotropic medication and for diagnosing mental health disorders, although Clinical Psychologists can also diagnose if required. Psychiatrists don’t tend to offer therapy, although there are exceptions to this rule and some may be registered as psychotherapists following further extensive training. 

Psychotherapists: who are registered with professionally regulated bodies such as the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Psychotherapists are often (but not always) mental health professionals such as psychiatrists, mental health nurses, counsellors or psychologists who have taken on additional training in one or more models of therapy. Like counselling, the title of ‘psychotherapist’ is not a regulated term in the UK and this can mean that anyone is able to practice under this title with or without training. Those who have received training in a particular model such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) tend to be highly trained experts in that model.

Counsellors: aren’t considered to be a regulated profession in the UK and this means that while some counsellors have received high quality training, others may not have had any training. There are a number of good counselling membership bodies that do put in place minimum standards for counsellors to work by, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Those who are members of these bodies are likely to have Diploma level training. Good counsellors are excellent listeners and strive to offer a compassionate and safe space for their clients but are unlikely to act as advisors. Counsellors working with Serendipity Psychology are trained, or training at a minimum of a level 5 qualification, and are all members of reputable professional bodies who require high practice standards.

A mental health professional can help you approach your situation in a different way and teach you to develop new skills, gain different perspectives, listen to you in a non-judgemental way without expectation, and help you listen to yourself. Furthermore, therapy is a confidential environment so you won’t have to worry about other non-professionals knowing about what you’re struggling with.

Medication alone cannot solve mental health issues because it merely treats the symptoms. Work with a therapist is designed to explore the underlying issue and teach strategies that can help you accomplish your personal and relational goals. These strategies can help prevent future difficulties you may encounter which medication wouldn’t be able to achieve.

Medication can be effective and is sometimes needed in conjunction with therapy.

Some people who are referred to us have a clear idea of the type of therapy they would like to engage in. This may be because they have looked into it themselves, or because someone has recommended something to them. Other people are happy to work with their therapist to decide what options are available to them. It is a minefield and while we are happy to accommodate referrals for particular therapies in most instances, we would never expect a new client to know what they need therapeutically. We expect to help you with this in your initial consultation and along the way.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is a guidance, advice and information service for health and social care professionals. It releases guidance to clinicians about what forms of treatment tend to respond best to particular disorders for the majority of people. This is usually based on the most current and available research in the area. Your therapist will often consider a combination of sources when deciding what might be a useful therapy for you, these sources will include the NICE guidelines, other recent evidence in the area, their training and experience, and what you want which may or may not be based on previous experiences you have had. For example, if the NICE guidance suggests you might benefit best from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but you haven’t had a positive experience of this therapy in the past, your therapist may need to explore other options with you.

Every person has different issues and goals so therapy will be different depending on the individual. Arranging an initial consultation session will enable you to meet with a psychologist who will be able to explore the issues you have and the things you want to achieve. You can then consider the most helpful approach with them going forward.

Everyone’s circumstances are unique to them and the length of time therapy can take to allow you to accomplish your goals depends on your desire for personal development, your commitment, and the factors that are driving you to seek therapy in the first place. It is possible to decide that you have a certain period of time you are willing to commit to therapy and both you and your therapist can agree to work on specific issues during this period and review progress regularly. Some people find that committing to a time frame can be helpful while other prefer not to do this and recognise that they enjoy investing in longer-term therapy and recognise that investing in longer-term therapy is very helpful for them. Either approach can bring about great benefits.

Active participation and dedication to therapy brings about much more individual progress and success. While the work done in the therapy session is very important, the work you do outside your session brings about the most change. Reflecting on the sessions afterwards and considering the central points of change can be one very good way of helping the process. Sometimes it can be even more helpful to agree work to be accomplished between sessions with your therapist before the end of the session that can then be reviewed in your next session.

If you are concerned about your relationship and you are both considering meeting with a therapist, it can be most useful to initially attend together. It may be that your therapist feels seeing you together and then separately for a session can also be helpful before bringing you together again. After couples work has ended, it is possible for one of you to return on an individual basis but it is important to know that it isn’t helpful to move from individual into couples work with the same therapist so once individual therapy has started, the couple should not return to therapy.

It is also worthy of note that couples therapy doesn’t always have to start or end with the goal of staying together. This is a common illusion of couples and marriage therapy. Sometimes the most effective goal of therapy can be to support the couple to separate in an amicable way. This can be especially helpful in considering parting between individuals who have children, pets or who share significant assets that need amicable division. Being supported by a therapist to accomplish this together can be a much more rewarding, reflective and cost effective way of breaking down a relationship than seeking opposing solicitors! 

If you are hoping to receive therapy funded through an insurance company such as BUPA, Aviva, Healix, WPA or Cigna, we would ask that you first make contact with them and ensure they have authorised funding for you. When you do this, they will tell you how many sessions are available to you initially, how and if you can apply for further sessions if you need them in the future, and what your excess payment is. They will also give you an authorisation number which you will need to provide to us, along with your membership number before therapy can start. Usually this information is given to you in a letter from the insurer and it can be easiest to share the letter with us if you are happy to do so as this will tell us what we need to know and will reduce the time we take to confirm details with them. The process of checking with your insurer can be quick and shouldn’t hold up the process of booking an appointment for too long.

1) Making a referral: After getting in touch with us, our Practice Manager and administrative team will take some details from you to ensure they have what they need to make an initial referral to someone within our team. These details will include:

• An overview of the problems you’re seeking help for
• Whether you have ideas about what support you were hoping to access
• Whether you’d like to access support online or in-person (or a hybrid of both)
• Where you’re based and how far you would be prepared to travel if you want to access support in-person
• Your availability

2) Team allocation: They will then collaborate with our Lead Psychologist or a member of our senior clinical team to consider who might be the best person to link you up with based on the information they’ve gathered from you. They will make the referral and the practitioner will get in touch with you to make an initial appointment; we aim for this to be within 48 hours.

3) Confirmation details: Once setup, the practitioner will notify the practice management team who will send out confirmation of the appointment with the details you need to attend the appointment and requesting you to complete some information so we can setup a client file in your name, and you can make payment for the first session.

4) Initial consultation: An initial consultation with someone from our team of specialists would involve the first stages of an assessment to establish what the problem is and how to work with it. 

5) Subsequent sessions: If you are happy to continue after the first consultation, you will have the opportunity to setup subsequent sessions directly with your practitioner. You or they may decide they aren’t the right person to continue work with, either because they don’t have the most suitable skillset or expertise, or you may simply feel they aren’t the right fit for you. We encourage you to let us know if this is the case and we can investigate whether someone else in the team might be a better fit. This is usually quite normal in therapeutic practice as we believe it’s important for you to feel there’s a string rapport with the therapist working with you.

6) Formal assessments: If you are starting a formal assessment process, such as an assessment for neurodivergence (ASD / ADHD), or another formal assessment as detailed above, you should receive some more detailed information about what to expect in the first session and thereafter from our practice manager. Please ask in advance if you are unsure about the process of this as we are here to help and ensure the process is as seamless as possible.

It’s likely that the first consultation will involve both parent and child either together, separately, or a bit of both depending on what is assessed as most helpful by the practitioner at the time. In cases of very young children, it may not be suitable for them to attend the initial session, or the work may be more appropriately done through their parent/s. It is always best to explore this initially with the clinician/s who will be conducting the initial appointment and make sure you have a plan with them about how best to manage the first session. They should guide you in how to do this in the initial setup call you have with them and would also expect to make a plan with you when you attend the session.