Frequently Asked Questions

We understand that you may have lots of questions about the process of your work with Join Psychology. Our common Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) aim to answer your queries, but if you have further questions, please contact us.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Psychological therapy and assessments are available between 9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. Bespoke training/consultation and clinical supervision is available outside of these hours to suit your needs, on request.

We accept self-referrals which means you can get directly in touch with us to talk about the help you need. We also accept referrals from General Practitioners (GP’s), Health, Social Care and Legal Professionals on your behalf with your prior consent for them to share information about you. We will then contact you directly to arrange an initial assessment. Professional referrers are welcome to get in touch with us for our client referral form.

There are many different approaches to helping people make changes in their lives. Clinical Psychologists are trained in a number of different psychological models and as we come to understand more about your needs and hopes for change in the initial assessment, we will suggest the approach(es) that may be best suited to helping you. Clinical Psychologists will often use a number of psychological approaches to help you.

You may sometimes be asked to bring copies of previous assessment reports and letters from Health Professionals if this is relevant. We can decide whether you need to bring anything with you when you arrange the initial assessment with your Psychologist. We will ask you to complete a personal details information sheet and also to read and sign our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions before starting assessment or therapy.

You are very welcome to bring someone along to the appointment for support if you wish and if you are happy for them to be involved in supporting you. We will talk to you about the information you are happy to be shared with other people. We may sometimes suggest seeing you with other important people in your life, such as partners, family members, professionals and other people in your support network. We will explain our reasons and check this with you to ensure you are comfortable with this.

Sometimes, it is helpful for your GP and/or other Health Professional involved in your care to be kept informed about the help you are receiving. You do not have to share information with your GP and/or other service if you do not wish to. There may be times when we have to share information with your GP and/or other services as part of our duty to ensure yours and others’ safety. We will explain this process to you and please see our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions for more information.

Sometimes, after the initial telephone discussion and/or assessment, we may decide that another service would be better suited to help you. If this happens, we will talk to you about the reasons for this decision and try to help find another service that may be more suitable.

Sometimes, you may need more urgent mental health support in between sessions. We do not offer an urgent care or out of hours service and advise you to access your GP, out of hours and emergency services if needed.

We have a 24-hour cancellation policy which means that pre-arranged appointments that are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice will still be charged at the agreed rate. We understand that sometimes you may need to cancel an appointment, so please let us know as soon as possible if you need to cancel an appointment. Non-attendance without prior cancellation will also be charged at the agreed rate.

Please note that health insurance providers will only pay for attended sessions and therefore, you may be liable to pay for cancelled or non-attended sessions. Please see our Terms and Conditions for further information.

We kindly ask that payment for all services is made before your appointment. We accept payment by Bank Automated Credit System (BACS) transfer only and unfortunately cannot accept cash or cheques. We accept payments from a number of health insurance providers, including AVIVA, AXA PPP, BUPA, CIGNA, Simply Health, Vitality Health and WPA. Please see our Terms and Conditions for further information about accessing psychological assessment and therapy when funded by health insurance providers.  Please see our Fees page for further information about charges for all of our services.