Psychology Sessions 

Psychology sessions will be held online and each session will last 50-55 minutes. 

Initial Assessments: Our 1st Psychology session will involve an evaluation of your current needs. It is a space to explore whether my therapeutic approach is suitable for you. If it is my clinical opinion that you would benefit more from an alternative clinician or service, I will recommend that you attend an alternative service. 

Therapy Frequency: Following the initial assessment, if we agree that my therapeutic skills and approach are a good match for your needs, we will agree the frequency of our sessions.  Sessions are usually weekly or fortnightly, but other session frequencies can be discussed.

Fees & Fee Policy

Initial Assessment Consultation (50-55 minutes) - €120

Psychological therapy sessions (50-55 minutes) - €120

Payment: Please note that payment is due at the time of booking in order to confirm your appointment. You will receive a text and/or email with details of ways to pay, including Revolut transfer or using a debit or credit card.

A reminder will be sent 72 hours prior to your appointment time if no payment has been received.  If no payment has been received, the Psychologist will not attend the appointment.

If you have difficulty making payments, please contact me to discuss options. 

As a matter of best practice, and with your consent, I will write a brief letter to your GP when we begin working together, as it is important that your GP is aware of this. I will also write a brief letter to your GP when we finish our work together. This letter will contain factual information only, outlining the number of sessions attended and a very limited overview of the general areas of difficulty that we worked on together. This is included in the normal therapy rates. However, beyond this, any report writing, impact statements or GP report letters requested are charged at an hourly therapeutic rate (pro-rata where appropriate).

Cancellation policy for Therapy Appointments

If you are unable to attend your appointment, please let me know as soon as possible via email to hello@westcorkpsychology.ie or call/text 089 2077348. 24 hours notice is required for cancellation. No refund will be given for non-attended appointments or those cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, as the psychologist incurs the same costs as if the appointment had taken place and is unable to offer the slot to another client at that late stage.

The psychologist will endeavour to give you as much advance notice as possible of any need to cancel or reschedule a future appointment, for instance due to illness. Any appointments that need to be rescheduled by the psychologist do not incur a cost to the client – the appointment fee can be refunded or applied to the next appointment.

If you miss a prepaid appointment without notice, I will attempt to call you during the allotted session time. If I cannot reach you by phone, I will email you. After this, I will not attempt to make contact again until I have heard from you. If I do not hear from you for a period of 6 weeks following an unexplained missed appointment, I will consider our involvement ended and I will write to both you and your GP to confirm this.  

Contact between sessions

I do not provide a crisis service and I am unable to respond to any psychological needs outside of agreed appointment times. I will endeavour to respond to any general queries within 2 working days. Any client or prospective client who requires more urgent or multidisciplinary mental health support should contact their GP in the first instance, for advice, or should contact their nearest GP out-of-hours service. In case of mental health emergency such as a risk of suicide, please call 999 or attend your nearest Emergency department.

Video-based appointments

All appointments are by video call, using a secure Telehealth system. You do not need any specific system requirements to access your appointments on your smartphone, laptop or tablet. This means confidentiality is a shared responsibility between psychologist and client – please ensure you are in a confidential space for your appointments. You may prefer to use headphones to ensure that others cannot hear my side of the conversation, and I will do the same to protect your confidentiality. 

Appropriate modes of dress are required, as if you were attending the appointment in person. Sessions may be terminated if the psychologist considers behaviour or attire to be inappropriate. Recording of video sessions is not permitted. 

Occasionally, technical challenges can affect any service and would typically be beyond the psychologist’s control. As session times cannot be extended, connection issues causing significant disruption to a session would be continued instead by telephone.

Confidentiality

The service will need to hold GP contact information, in case of a safety issue arising. The psychologist will be unable to see any client who is unable to provide GP contact details. Where information is shared during an appointment that results in the psychologist feeling concerned about the safety of the client or that of another person, the psychologist would have a professional duty of care to act on the information shared accordingly. The psychologist would inform the client prior to taking any appropriate course of action unless to do so would exacerbate any risk present. Notwithstanding safety issues, details shared within sessions remain confidential, with brief session records stored electronically and in line with GDPR requirements. 

Client names would be visible to those supporting the service with financial reporting, such as an accountant, however no clinical information would be visible in this context. 

Further, it is a professional requirement for the psychologist to engage in regular clinical supervision and as such, clinical information may sometimes be shared in order to seek advice from a peer or more senior supervisor in the interest of following best practice. However, such discussions are anonymised and the supervisor would not have access to client-identifying details.

Please confirm by writing via email that you have read, understood and agree to these terms and conditions. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions outlined above, we will not be able to proceed and you will need to seek support elsewhere.