counselling to take place at specified date(s)/time(s). Although it can be difficult,
please try to be honest and explicit when describing your issue(s).
Please note I will not provide telephone support to under 18s without the express
permission of a parent or guardian in writing/e-mail.
Under normal conditions you will receive a response from me within 12 hours advising
whether I believe I can help you and proposing a date/time for contact.
If you find yourself experiencing overwhelming thoughts of harming yourself or others,
then do not wait for me to contact you - but seek immediate help from your doctor,
the Samaritans or the police.
Once an appointment has been made, then phone me - (+44) (0)1274 975667 - at the
agreed time on the agreed date. (If you have Skype, you may prefer to phone me that
way - I am in the Skype Directory as ‘keith.e.rice’. If you have a webcam and would
like us to be able to see each other, you may prefer us to have a Skype video call.)
The first 15(-ish) minutes of our conversation will be diagnostic - ie: I will be
attempting to understand your issue(s). Some of the questions I ask you may seem
highly personal. Please help me by being honest and explicit.
At the end of the diagnostic, I will give you my considered opinion as to the likely
underlying causes of your issue and/or whether I am confident I can help you. I will
also give you an idea of what kind of support and/or therapy I propose to use and
over how many sessions.
You will be encouraged to ask me questions about the support and/or therapy so that
you are as confident as you can be that this is the right approach for you.
Contracting & Payment
If you wish to proceed, then I will ask you to purchase a single or double session
as we agree. A single session is 30 minutes and costs £24 (£20+VAT); a double session
(1 hour) costs £48 (£40+VAT). Payment is in advance and should be made using the
PayPal button below.
Clicking on the button takes you to a secure PayPal page where you can make your
purchase either through your PayPal account (if you have one) or with any one of
the
call me back in 30 minutes. This will allow time for the payment to go through and
to allow us both to prepare for the session.
When you call back, at the beginning of the conversation, I will need to take full
contact details, name and contact details of your spouse/partner or other next of
kin as appropriate. I will also require the name and contact details of your doctor.
Please be assured I will not contact any others without your express permission unless
I am convinced you are about to put yourself or others at serious risk.
With regard to further/multiple sessions, please make payment at least 30 minutes
before the conversation is due to start.
In the event that we both consider it appropriate to keep the conversation going
after time has run out on a session, I will suspend the conversation to allow you
to purchase another session. In the event that I consider it critical to keep the
conversation going without interruption, I will ask you to pay for the de facto additional
session at its conclusion.
If you need to cancel or rearrange a session, please try to give at least 12 hours’
notice. I reserve the right to charge a cancellation fee of £11.75 (£10+VAT) if you
fail to give the required notice without good reason. In the event that I need to
rearrange a session, I will use my best endeavours to let you know at least 12 hours
in advance.
At the end of a conversation, I will e-mail you a receipted VAT invoice for your
records.
How
a session works
It is difficult to be prescriptive about how a telephone session works as it is about
YOU - and YOU are totally unique. It is a conversation that should be an enriching,
if sometimes challenging, experience for you.
The essential idea is to explore your issue(s) - what’s bothering you - and the effect
it is having on you and perhaps others. I will use sociopsychological theory to help
you understand yourself (and others) and hopefully arrive at solutions to your issue(s).
At the very least we should be able to find ways for you to manage your issue(s)
if they are not clearly resolvable.
It is important that you are sat at a computer while we have the conversation as
I may direct you to pages on my web site to illustrate points I am making.
I may well give you follow-up work to do for yourself. In the case of work in between
multiple sessions, it is important that you carry out the task(s) given and provide
me with feedback as to your experience.
Limitations
& Expectations
A telephone support session, no matter how knowledgeable and experienced the adviser
is, is not the same as an in-person therapy session and expectations need to be
realistic.
Much can be achieved through conversation and certain exercises can be conducted
over the phone. However, I do consider it unethical and potentially dangerous to
carry out some of the ‘deep therapy’ work without being in the room with the client.
The therapist needs to watch closely - and, in some cases, smell! - the client to
monitor the effects of the therapeutic intervention. It may be that the sessions
reach the point where, to progress, an in-person consultation is necessary - in which
case you will need to come to see me (or I to come to you) or, with the knowledge
you’ve gained from the telephone sessions, you need to consult another, more local
therapist.
Please note I do not consider telephone support at all suitable as the primary intervention
with psychotics such as schizophrenics and manic-depressives. Such people need a
carefully coordinated programme of medication and in-person therapy - though telephone
support may have a supporting role as part of such a programme.
Why
suffer? Get in contact now!
As they say, life is too short to suffer needlessly....
