How to book a session
Anyone can contact us to discuss their concerns or book a session with a psychologist at Looking Glass Psychology. Referrals from your GP, Paediatrician, school wellbeing staff or another practitioner are also accepted.
Initial Consultation and Assessment
The first 50-minute appointment is simply a conversation regarding the history of your concerns, current issues and needs.
You will be invited to spacious treatment room by your psychologist and offered a seat on the couch. You and your psychologist will have a conversation about your reasons for attending our practice, and your hopes and expectations for treatment. If you have had previous experience of counselling, you will be encouraged to share your preferences with your psychologists so that we can ensure we meet your expectations.
Over the first few sessions, some focussed goals will be clearly defined so that both you and your psychologist will have a shared understanding of aim of counselling for yourself or your child. You may be asked to complete online or pen-and-paper questionnaires to inform our assessment and development of treatment goals. Whilst the nature of counselling is sensitive, and you will be encouraged to be as open as possible with your psychologist, at no point during treatment will you be required to talk about or do anything that you do not feel comfortable with. In order to ensure continuous service improvement, we will occasionally seek your feedback by the completed of a client satisfaction survey.
Treatment Plans
A schedule for treatment typically involves weekly or fortnightly 50-minute sessions. Some focussed goals will be mutually determined between you and the psychologist. These goals will be regularly reviewed during the course of the work in order to assess and/or modify the progress of the work towards these goals. Often, clients begin to feel the benefits of counselling after a few sessions however, this is dependent on a range of factors. A typical treatment plan will require 5 to 15 sessions.
Child-focussed work
For child-focussed work, the initial consultation is with parents/guardians only, to enable a candid, open conversation about your concerns and hopes, and you can ask questions about the assessment and therapeutic process. Assessment usually involves a mix of sessions with the parent/carer and child, both together and separately.
Child-focussed work may involve talking, play-based work, drawing, craft and other child-friendly therapeutic activities. Sessions with adolescents are based on the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy and focus on identifying and challenging children’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in relation to their worries. With young children, parents are encouraged to be involved in sessions and play based activities may be used in order to increase the child’s awareness and to teach coping strategies.
Parent feedback sessions provide an opportunity for parents/carers to discuss concerns and for the psychologists to develop an intervention tailored to your child’s needs. Sometimes, parents are involved throughout treatment in the role of co-therapist, to allow for ongoing implementation of recommended strategies alongside and following the completion of treatment.