Intervention – Treatment
Telephone consultation
When contacting Anchor Psychology the initial conversation is with Dr Kajal Patel, Clinical Psychologist
This free initial telephone conversation is a chance for us to briefly discuss what the main concerns or difficulties are. If I am able to help we would then arrange a face to face consultation.
If I feel that another service or therapist would be more appropriate to meet your needs I will redirect you accordingly.
Initial meeting
This initial meeting would be an assessment session. The aim of this would be to get an in depth understanding of the current difficulties, explore factors which may have contributed to the development of the issue and what may be helping maintain things. It is important to consider all difficulties in context and so the discussion may also include strengths, family, work/ education and developmental history as appropriate.
In addition to face to face discussion it is often useful to complete questionnaires/ rating scales. These provide another detailed source of information and can help to define the goals or focus of therapy and track changes.
At the end of the first meeting we will jointly agree on a shared understanding of the key issues and plan the most helpful next step. You are under no obligation to book further intervention/ treatment sessions.
Intervention
If you would like to proceed with treatment we would start by agreeing goals to work towards, an approximate number of sessions, and when and how we will review progress.
In order to gain the most benefit from therapy, you may be asked to complete tasks such as fill in diaries or practice strategies/ coping skills between appointments.
When meeting with a family it is important to hear everyone’s perspective. I am happy to meet with young people under the age of 18 years individually, however, it can also be helpful to meet with their parents/ carers for at least part of the initial session (please see confidentiality).