Sessions are 50 minutes in duration, with the other 10 minutes of the hour being used for client notes. The initial session will be 60 minutes in duration, if you complete initial paperwork in the session. If you chose to complete it and bring it to the session, it will be 50 minutes.

Ideally, therapy is a weekly commitment, this aides the development of the relationship and trust, as well as keeping the momentum of our work going.  However, if fortnightly sessions work better for you for financial reasons or time restrictions, we can do this.  We can move from weekly to fortnightly and possible monthly to suit your needs.  Some people prefer to work towards ending after a certain number of weekly sessions, or when they feel better.  I’m client-led on this. 

The investment for counselling psychotherapy is £60 per hour.  

Single session therapy is £70 for up to an hour, which includes time to assess the pre-session questionnaire. 

Supervision is £60 for an hour and £85 for 1.5 hours. 

The answer to this will depend on what you are hoping to get from therapy.  If your focus is on a particular life event, finding coping strategies, problem solving or you need space to talk about a loss of life transition, then 6 - 12 sessions may be enough.  

If you are looking to do more in-depth work on changing ingrained behavioural or relationship patterns, understanding childhood wounds and attachment issues, processing complex grief, change your habitual way of coping to something more helpful, ongoing support with mental health or other conditions and caring responsibilities, or challenging core beliefs; then longer term therapy (i.e. 6 months to one year plus) might be more suitable. 

For some people, a single session of solution focused therapy may be enough. 

If we are meeting to work using the Rewind technique, 2-3 sessions should be enough. 

You are not under any obligation to commit to a certain number of sessions and we will regularly review the frequency and how it’s going. 

I recommend working towards a planned ending, as this is an important part of the work. It can be rare in life to get an ending that we planned for. This is an opportunity to experience that and might impact the way you view endings in life as a result.

I’m trained and experienced in holding space and creating an environment to help people feel at ease to talk and explore what’s going on for them. This will always be at a pace you are comfortable with and you never have to talk about anything you don’t want to.  I also use creative activities (if you wanted to try them) and share educational resources and coping strategies, as well as talking therapy.  

A typical first session will involve completing a contact information sheet and pre-counselling questionnaire which helps give me an idea of what is going on for you and what you are hoping to get from therapy, as well as sharing any accessibility needs or information I might need to be aware of. 

There are also some forms (counselling agreement, privacy policy, GDPR policy) to read and sign, I will always email these before the session so you can read them in your own space if you want to.  You can also view these forms via links on the therapy page of my website. 

We will then talk about what has happened to bring you to therapy at this time and I’ll ask some questions to give me a better idea of what life is like for you and the things you are struggling with.  At the end of the session, I’ll ask you if you want to continue with sessions and we will agree frequency and our next meeting date.  

You can email me to cancel your sessions at any point, I just ask for at least 24 hours notice before the next booked session, which avoids any cancellation charges. 

Even once we are meeting regularly, if you decide it’s not working or you don’t want to continue, we can end. You are not under any obligation to commit to certain number of sessions.

If you give more than 24 hours notice you will not have to pay. If it’s less than 24 hours notice but we reschedule the session for the same week you’re due to come, there will be no charge.  If it’s under 24 hours notice and you can’t reschedule during this time frame, then a 50% reduced fee will be charged. This applies to unavoidable emergencies as well. 

There isn’t a scale or expectation of a level of distress to access therapy.  Lots of people come to therapy for personal development reasons or to make a change, not just when they have hit rock bottom or following a crisis or adverse life event. I would never make a judgement about why a person is seeking therapy.  I trust that each person knows what they need innately - sometimes life gets in the way of this knowing. If you are open to trying therapy and wanting to work on understanding and changing your life, I’m here to support you In the work. 

The things you tell me in our sessions are confidential, however there are a few exceptions where I may have to share information for your wellbeing, the law or for the protection of others.  These include: 

• If I thought you were at risk of harming yourself or others.

• I’m required by law to report certain disclosed information (terrorism, money laundering, road traffic accident driver information provision, serious crimes or drug trafficking).

• I must report child protection issues. 

• I may also discuss our work at my clinical supervision sessions, but your name or any identifying information would not be shared. 

I won’t give you advice.  I will help you explore your options and reach your own decisions.  This is because it’s your life and I believe you have the answers within and might just need some help finding them.  

I will also share information with you that could help you.  This is known as psychoeducation and it might include coping strategies, interventions, techniques, research, signposting to resources and the sharing of factual credible knowledge. 

While AI chatbots can be very supportive and are also available 24-7, so if you are wondering about something, you can ask them about it at anytime. AI can help you to challenge your thoughts, teach you coping strategies and practical suggestions and be there for when you need to vent. AI can also be a bit too agreeable and is limited to the information you are sharing

Therapy differs here, as a trained therapist can spot a mismatch between what you are saying and your non-verbal body language. We can then explore this with you and it might lead to awareness of something you hadn’t realised, so wouldn’t have been able to type into AI.

Furthermore the relationship is key to therapy success. Often people have wounds from past or current relationships, that can be helped through being in a healthy unconditional relationship in therapy. People also repeat patterns in therapy that might be going on in their everyday life and relationships. This provides opportunities in therapy for understanding and relational healing. Furthermore, If a person’s nervous system is stuck in survival mode, or they are triggered, we co-regulate in therapy through the therapist’s nervous system being calm (parasympathetic), which can help to reset the client ‘s nervous system.

AI can aid being in therapy, as you can use it to help you prepare for sessions, to prompt self-reflection after sessions and to remind you of thought reframing and coping strategies between sessions.

It compliments therapy but it cannot replace human connection and the benefits of the human therapeutic relationship.

Email me at hello@katyactoncounselling.com or click ‘book a session’ through my website.  If you still have questions, we could book a free 15 minute telephone call to give you a chance to see how you feel talking to me and ask any further questions.  Please note this call isn’t therapy, so I will not ask in-depth information about why you are seeking therapy, as this risks opening difficult things up that we might not be able to contain outside of the boundaries of a therapy session.