Welcome to Space for the Soul, I’m looking forward to working with you! The following is a brief outline of how we will work together and what commitments we both have to this work. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me.

ABOUT ME

My name is Stephen Raikes, a self-employed counsellor with Space for the Soul. I am a fully qualified and insured counsellor, registered with COSCA (the professional body for counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland) and I follow their ethical framework for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy.

PRACTICAL

Our sessions will take place via zoom. Please ensure you have a strong WiFi signal and that you’re in a quiet, private room where you will not be disturbed for the duration of the session. Please have your mobile off or on airplane mode throughout and disable notifications on your computer. Please dress as if we were meeting in person. Feel free to have water/soft drink during the session, but please don’t eat whilst we meet. You may also want to keep some tissues nearby in case you feel emotional.

CONFIDENTIALITY

The content of our sessions is completely confidential and I will not disclose to anyone what’s been said or even that you have attended sessions with me. On occasion I will need to discuss our work together with my professional supervisor. This is standard practice and helps me to work as well as I can with you. In this process your identity is not revealed.

In exceptional circumstances, where I am concerned for your safety or wellbeing, or that of others (especially that of a child), I have a legal obligation to report my concerns to the relevant authorities. I would always seek to gain your agreement to this first.

CANCELLATIONS

To get the most value out of our work together, it is important to commit to the process and try not to miss any sessions unless it’s completely unavoidable.

I appreciate if you can give as much notice as possible if you need to cancel a session for any reason. Please note that sessions cancelled with less than 24hrs notice will be charged in full.

I will always attempt to give as much notice as possible if I have to cancel a session and where possible will try to rearrange our session for another time.

DURATION

We will work with an open contract (unless otherwise agreed) and will regularly review the therapeutic process together. This helps to assess whether your needs are being met and this will also help to make any adjustments and/or establish new goals for the process.

ENDING

You will probably know when you are ready to finish counselling, and we will agree together on the work we need to do to prepare for this; this will include an appraisal of future challenges, and planning alternative strategies to manage these.  

Please fill out your intake form prior to your first appointment to confirm you agree to these terms.