Sonja Beacham

Excellence Within

COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY IN NOTTINGHAM AND ONLINE

CALL 07778 635 050

Sonja Beacham MA

UKCP Reg Psychotherapist 00995162

NCPS senior accredited NCS21-00439

MBACP 00513036

Psychotherapist and Accredited EMDR Practitioner

Therapeutic agreements help provide a mutual working agreement for work together

1) About me.

I am a UKCP Registered Gestalt Psychotherapist and accredited EMDR practitioner integrating various approaches into my work, including EMDR, CBT, NLP including timeline work, Hypnosis, TA, Mindfulness and EFT.

2) Online remote appointments

It is helpful that you log in from a quiet and private environment. Clients have completed appointments with me from the comfort of their own home, a private room in the workplace, in a parked car and sitting in a quiet corner of a park. It is helpful if you are somewhere there is a stable reception.

I am unable to carry out a session whilst you are driving any vehicle or are on a cycle. If working by video on your phone. It can be more comfortable to have something to prop your phone up onto, so you are not holding it. Sometimes headphones are useful to cut out background noise. You can bring things to the session to help you feel comfortable, glass of water, tissues and a pen and paper to make notes.

If we experience technical issues whilst in an appointment then please contact me by telephone or text on 07778 635 050 and we can then switch to either WhatsApp, facetime or telephone.

Telephone sessions are available if you prefer. Note, I am unable to work with EMDR by telephone.

3) Face to face in person sessions NG9 7JH

A limited number of in person session are held in Nottingham on the ground floor of the building with ground floor access to a bathroom. Parking is free on the road and is just off local transport routes for bus and near the TOTON lane tram terminus. Postcode NG9 7JH

If you have booked a face-to-face appointment and cannot make it in person for whatever reason, it is fine to switch this to a remote appointment or telephone, so you don’t lose the appointment. Please let me know at least half an hour before the session starts.

Seasonal illnesses

If attending in person and you have signs of flu/colds or anything else that could infect other clients attending the practice, that you let me know and we will move to a remote appointment for that session. I will also let you know if I need to more to a remote appointment for the same reason. This is to ensure the wellbeing of all clients who attend the practice, some of whom have lowered immunity. In the case of this situation arising, you can use the remote zoom link that will have been sent out to you, or we can use WhatsApp/facetime, or I will call you by phone at the appointment time whichever you prefer.

4) Health and wellbeing

Whilst we may work on the psychological parameters of physical illness, please note I am not able to give any medical guidance regarding your physical wellbeing. If you are worried about physical symptoms or medications, you are advised to seek appropriate medical guidance for those concerns. It is helpful to inform me of any pre-existing conditions/symptoms that may present impact on therapy and for me to know about any prescribed or non-prescribed medication that may alter your ability to engage with sessions.

I will not be able to see clients who arrive for therapy, in person or remote under the influence of alcohol or non -prescribed medication that alters your ability to engage with me.

5) Sessions days/times

I offer appointments Monday to Thursday first appointment usually 745 am, sessions are possible from 7 15 am if requested Monday to Thursday.

6) Session Fees for individual self-funding clients

Psychotherapy Session fees are currently £ 80 per session.

EMDR session fees are £ 80 per session

Appointments are usually booked for 50 mins..

PAYMENT Details:

SONJA BEACHAM

Santander current account

Account number: 52272375

Sort code: 09-01-28

If you can use your name as a reference and include the session date on the bank payment, this is helpful. Payments are usually via bank transfer to book a session. If you wish to pay a different way, then please do ask.

If you prefer, you may choose to pay for a small block of sessions in advance. Eg one month at a time. Please speak with me first before making a bigger payment, so we can ensure together that you will need to use all the appointments as I’m unable to provide refunds for a partially used block of sessions.

7) How to book

The payment for a session is due at the time of requesting an appointment. Once paid for that session is then booked and held for you. Once we have started working together, most appointments will be arranged at the end of a session each week. The session fee is then due at the end of each session.

Any appointments not confirmed with a payment within 24 hours of your request to book, may then be opened up and made available to other clients who may need them. If this situation arises, where you haven’t been able to make the payment in time to book, please do contact me to request a session and to ensure that the time you want is still free for you before attending.

I review fee rates at regular intervals, at least once a year. Any change in fees for current clients will be discussed and you will be given a minimum of 1 months’ notice of any planned changes.

8) Cancellations policy

In the event of you needing to cancel or re arrange an appointment, for whatever reason, please give me a full 48 hours’ notice to my mobile, 07778 635 050.There is no charge for a cancellation where 48 hours’ notice is given, and the session will be re arranged to a mutually convenient time. Missed sessions where no notice is given will be charged at the full fee.

If a session is late cancelled with less than 48 hours, I may some weeks have the flexibility to arrange to another time in the same calendar week using this session fee, so please do ask, however I cannot guarantee to be able to do this and if this isn’t possible the full fee is still payable for that missed or late cancelled session where less than 48 hours’ notice was given.

If your appointment is on a Monday, it is much appreciated if you may let me know on the Friday where at all possible if you cannot make the Monday appt as this sometimes gives me an opportunity to offer the time out to another. If arriving late for any appointment, I will generally be unable to extend beyond the agreed ending time to ensure I can begin other appointments on time.

9) Ending our sessions

You are free to end your therapeutic agreement with me at any time. I would encourage you to have an ending session with me. The importance of a good ending is a key component to our work together and enables us to look ahead and consider how you may work with the strategies from our sessions moving forwards and to consider situations that could arise together with a plan of how you wish to handle them.

10) Confidentiality

Details of sessions will be kept in the strictest confidence. At no time will identifying information about you be given to anyone outside of the therapy relationship unless any of the exceptions below apply.

If you threaten to harm yourself or others.
If we believe a child or vulnerable adult to be at risk of harm or abuse.
If instructed by a court of law to give information.

In certain situations, you might request that I share information concerning you. I will require your written permission before carrying out the request.

I do not permit client recordings of our sessions. This explicitly means that you must not record or live stream our video or audio sessions, post any part of our session on social media or arrange for others to do the same without my written consent.

To preserve your confidentiality, I don’t accept friend requests from clients to my personal

Facebook page or other social media unless it is specifically a business page.

11) Clinical supervision

I undertake regular peer consultation/supervision and more formal arrangements with 2 other colleagues. Some aspects of your therapy (anonymised) may be discussed with my supervisor colleagues, which is a normal requirement of our professional practice and does not affect the confidentiality of your information.

12) Letters and Reports supervision

I can write a brief letter confirming the fact of attendance at therapy, if requested by the client, this is free of charge. I do not write reports, unless in exceptional circumstances agreed with the client. The charge for reports is pro rata for the time spend on preparing it at my standard fee rate per 50 minutes.

13) Your records and data protection

I am registered with the information commissioner’s office and strive to adhere to their Data Protection Guidelines. Any personal data of your will only be kept if strictly necessary on a password protected device.

14) Clients attending through insurance companies

I am on the books of several large insurance companies and also take referrals from other organisations. If you are coming to me through an insurance company, I, will need the following information from you.

Written confirmation from your insurer that sessions are authorised and how many they will cover.
Your policy membership number,
The authorisation code for that block of sessions.
Your postal address and DOB
The amount of any excess that is on your policy and the policy renewal date.

Due to data protection, most insurers will not inform me directly of any of the above. It is your responsibility to ensure that sessions are covered by your insurance and to keep an eye on any annual limits on cover you may have. Any excess or shortfall not paid by the insurer is payable directly to me on the banking details provided.

15) Responsibility of therapist and client

My responsibility to you as my client:

I will endeavour to support you to the best of my knowledge skills and ability.

To provide a safe and comfortable space where you can be, think, feel, talk, and process.

Be open to feedback from you on how you are experiencing our relationship and the therapy process and on any adjustments that you may need.

If for any reason I think I am not the right person to provide what you need, I will discuss with you at the start or during the work and support you on to another service.

Your Responsibility:

I invite you to:

Take responsibility for your own personal development, growth and change.

To participate with an approach of curiosity/openness to trying new things as much as is possible for you and appropriate to you.

Be willing to try out any “home play “tasks (as opposed to homework!) between sessions that I may suggest from time to time.

To attend on time and pay the agreed fee in the way requested unless we agree something different.

If at any time during out work together, you feel uncertain about how sessions are going or would like a further review, that you raise this with me and we will work together on resolving the issue. If you think this may be difficult for you, please do let me know at the start of our work together so I can support you with this should it arise..

If you have any questions regarding the content above or would like further information, please contact me at sonja@excellencewithin.com or call me on 07778 635 050

I very much look forward to meeting you and working with you.

Sonja