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Accessible  Specialist Treatment and Support

FAQs

Please contact us by email on  contactus@mentalhealthcarecollective.org.uk. Because we are a small team we cannot always answer calls. Email allows us to be sure we don’t miss you and end up with frustrating and time consuming back and fore for all of us!

It’s a talking therapy which focuses on how patterns of feeling, thinking and responding developed, and how they keep you stuck. It emphasises the use of the relationship that develops between the therapist and the patient, for emotional nurturing and to achieve change. There is a central focus on feelings or emotions and on meeting unmet core needs. For more detail, MHCC Schema Therapy information sheet 181018.

CAT also explores the way a person thinks, feels and acts, and the events and relationships that underlie these experiences. It focuses on understanding how you learn to survive sometimes intense and unmanageable feelings by relating to others and yourself in particular ways, and how these patterns may now be holding you back. For more detail, visit this website.

CBT is based on recognising the connections between thoughts, feelings and behaviours and working on changing one of these to alter the others. It focusses mostly on the here and now, and on particular techniques and strategies to achieve change in thoughts and behaviours. A lot of research has been done about CBT. For more detail, visit this website.

There is no ‘normal’, it depends on your particular problems, the model of therapy and the pace of change. Some people may do better with blocks of therapy and breaks in between. As a rule of thumb, a course of talking therapy involves from around 10 up to around 60 or 70 sessions of therapy. CBT and CAT are usually shorter than ST. Therapy is usually weekly but sometimes twice a week.

When you make contact with us we will send you our terms and conditions document, this gives the details for BACS bank transfer payments. This is our preferred means of payment. We ask for payment in advance of your first assessment appointment, but invoice you monthly thereafter. Direct card payments can be made as an alternative means of payment, but we don’t accept cash or cheques.

An expert by lived experience (ELE) is someone who has experienced mental health difficulties and treatment and who has made a recovery. They have lived through mental ill-health and found ways to change. They therefore have a unique perspective, knowledge and skills which can add to the care that professionals can offer.

If you are 16 or over, you have the legal right to consent to your treatment and therefore to confidentiality. We would encourage people under 18 to give consent to involving their family in their care to some extent in most circumstances, especially if you are living with them, but we wouldn’t do so against your wishes, unless you were at high risk (see below).

We have a strict duty of confidentiality to you. For further information about what we will do with notes and other information or data we gather about you in the course of providing your care, see our data storage and use document. We will ask for your consent to share information with other professionals involved in your care eg. your GP. We will ask if you would like copies of letters.

However if we conclude there is a risk of harm to you or others, due to your mental state, there is an obligatory duty of care to disclose information to others who are in the best position to protect you and minimise risk. This could involve your GP, the Police, or family members. We would only share the information that was necessary to achieve safety in that particular situation.

During 2019, the first year of our service, we are unlikely to be able to offer reduced rate care. However our aim is to provide reduced rates of £50 or £5 per hour of therapy, depending on people’s ability to pay. We will provide details on our website of arrangements for this from December 2019.

It happens. If you can discuss what is difficult, that might help work through the feelings. Sometimes therapists have to be quite challenging and direct as part of the therapy process and that can lead to intense feelings coming up. If it feels like you just can’t get along with them, of course you can ask to see someone else.

Yes we can assess you. We are not a specialist autistic spectrum service, but they are mental health difficulties and so we are happy to assess and help if we think we can. Autistic Spectrum assessments are sometimes seen as being the work of specialist services only. Why autistic spectrum disorder assessments would be dealt with differently to other mental health conditions is not always clear. We have experience of working with people on the Autistic spectrum in the team, but if you want a specialist ASD service, that’s not us.

Yes, if we can offer it. It’s often a good thing if someone has researched therapy models and has an idea what they might want. We would tell you if after an assessment we thought a different therapy model would be better for you.

People often look for help when something difficult is happening. We will see you for an assessment as quickly as possible, however we are not an emergency or crisis service. You’ll find information about emergency and crisis services here.

Our main focus will be on what you want to focus on. However, as eating disorders can be dangerous to your physical health, we have to assess the physical risks. If our assessment of the physical risks is that they are safe enough, we can focus on your priorities. If we’re unable to get enough information to make an assessment of the physical risks, we wouldn’t be able to offer or continue with further care. We have experience of working with people who are significantly underweight and agreeing plans for managing the physical risks alongside therapy. We can’t guarantee that we won’t need to do your weight with you, it depends on other factors.

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