Harper Psychology:

Initial Appointment

The main aim of your first appointment, or session, is to begin an assessment of your difficulties.  We will discuss the

nature of confidentiality, and where there are exceptions to this, before we go on to talk about the reason you are seeking therapy.  It will be helpful to learn about you and what has been happening in your life recently and also what has happened in the past.  But we will go at your pace and it's important to know that you will always be in control of what you tell me.   It can sometimes take a while to build up trust especially if there have been difficulties with trust in the past.   

Assessment involves understanding your difficulties/experiences in detail, exploring what may be contributing to them, discussing your personal strengths and resources and thinking about your goals for therapy. This information will help us build up an understanding of you and your life which will help us decide what may be a helpful approach in therapy and to tailor the therapy to you as an individual. 

This assessment process may sometimes take a few sessions but the first session should give us a fairly good idea of what direction to head in.  It will also allow you see if you feel comfortable with me and if I’m the right therapist for you. Therapy is very much a collaborative, two way process so its important that you feel able to talk with me.  If at the end of the first session you decide that you don't wish or need to make a further appointment this is absolutely fine. If I feel that your needs may be best met in some other way I will give you advice and recommendations about what to do next.

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At this first meeting I will ask you for you contact details and go over terms and conditions of therapy such as confidentiality, cancellation etc. These terms and conditions can be emailed to you prior to your first appointment so you can have a read over them and ask any questions. All information will be stored confidentially and securely. There are more details of this in the privacy policy.  

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Following the assessment session/s if we decide that therapy may be helpful for you we will  then develop a plan for therapy. This involves deciding the type of therapeutic intervention and the initial number of sessions that I think would be required, however it's important to note that this may change as therapy progresses.  We will agree how often to meet although it's typical at the beginning of therapy to meet weekly or at least fortnightly. 

Our therapy sessions will last 50-55 minutes so its important that we have a structure where we agree the agenda or plan for that session to make sure that we cover everything that's important. We will then work through that agenda and perhaps plan some in-between session tasks based on what has been discussed.  Depending on the type of intervention you may be asked to read relevant information, keep notes on your thoughts and feelings and try out techniques discussed in therapy.  

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At each therapy session I will ask you for feedback about how you are finding the sessions including what you find helpful and anything that is unhelpful.  We will also have regular reviews together to check if therapy is progressing well toward your goals and to consider the next steps.  

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