Is The Mind Umbrella just another form of counselling or CBT?
No. The Mind Umbrella deals with the sort of issues that people might access counselling for, but unlike counselling or psychotherapy, you will not be expected to commit to a long series of sessions or to dwell in your past. The Mind Umbrella uses a variety of techniques to help you find out better ways to adapt to the current situation rather than look at your psychological past. The Mind Umbrella is not a CBT-specific service but uses CBT principles where appropriate.
How many sessions will I need?
This will depend on the problem and the person tackling it. A lot of people notice a change straight after the very first session. Most people see a marked change after Session 2. Others might take slightly longer. The expectation is that we will have succeeded in either solving or lessening the impact of the problem in no more than 4-8 weekly sessions. If it looks like your difficulty is better suited to long term psychotherapy or counselling, or where there is more than a single issue to tackle, we can discuss how we might best help you by considering several options, to include onward referral to an appropriate alternative service.
What is the philosophy behind The Mind Umbrella?
The science behind The Mind Umbrella assumes that:
- It is not people who need to be ‘fixed’, rather, problems need solutions
- Given the right tools people will be able to solve their own life problems
- Different people need different tools- a personalised approach is important.
- Dwelling in the past is not necessary to fix problems. The ‘here and now’ matters.
- Good solutions can come swiftly – you do not need to commit to lengthy sessions of psychological support to get to them.
What happens in the first Mind Umbrella session?
The first session is devoted to finding out what the problem is and what your expectations about potential solutions might be, discussing the practicalities of working together, and ensuring that you are in a good place to start tackling the difficulty you are seeking help with. Once we decide we can work together there is no ‘expert therapist’ telling a ‘novice client’ what to do. Instead, The Mind Umbrella sees the relationship as very much of a team effort. People bring their life experiences to sessions; we, at The Mind Umbrella bring a toolkit full of practical ways to deal with problems. We then form a plan together to tackle the problem, which you then take outside the session to try.
What happens in subsequent Mind Umbrella sessions?
Sessions are spent looking at the problem and any solutions you have already tried. We then work together to plan things for you to try out. We keep in touch between talking sessions and then meet to review how things have gone for you. It is important that you fully engage with these in-between session tasks as doing so will make us move to a solution more speedily.
How do you know if what we are doing is working?
People can normally tell if something is working for them! However, at The Mind Umbrella we also ensure that people are making observable progress in tackling their problem. To this end, where appropriate, we review how things have been going and measure progress towards beating the problem using questionnaires, as we go along. This will help us check that what we are doing is, in fact, working for you.
Is The Mind Umbrella regulated?
The Mind Umbrella offers solution-focused help to get people ‘unstuck’ from common life problems. As such, The Mind Umbrella is grounded in behavioural science principles and uses health psychology theory and research to help you. Under The Mind Umbrella, you will be benefitting from the expertise of a fully qualified, registered health psychologist, and as such you will have the reassurance that the service you receive is not only grounded in the latest best practice, but it is also bound by and fully adhering to the rules of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC).
I have private medical insurance- how do I access The Mind Umbrella through my insurers?
If you have access to private medical insurance please contact your insurers in the normal way and ask to be referred to The Mind Umbrella. They will organise the paperwork and the referral for you.
What is The Mind Umbrella’s Privacy Policy?
Please see below, for The Mind Umbrella’s Privacy Policy explaining what data we need from you and why.
We collect and store certain personal information from you, including name, address, phone number and email (in addition to medical data pertaining to your reason for visiting) for the following purposes:
- To comply with regulatory bodies (the British Psychological Society and Health Care Professions Council) and their standards of record keeping;
- To enable communication in relation to therapy in between sessions;
- To enable us to contact you with important information relating to the service, i.e. changes to our working hours or fees, advance notice of holiday or if we need to make any changes to your booked appointment due to unforeseen circumstances.
Records are updated at each session or telephone call/text conversation to keep the information regarding adjustments carried out and your response to therapy up to date. These records are kept securely in a locked cupboard. Only your Psychologist has access to this record.
Letters containing any information about you and/ or personal data are password-protected. Such letters are stored on an encrypted, password-protected computer.
In accordance with BPS regulations we are required to hold your data for a maximum period of 7 years after your last appointment. After this period, if we have not heard from you, we will destroy all data we hold on you.
We use a third-party cloud-based booking system (Waveapps) which is password protected to send Invoices and collect payments electronically. Their security policy can be reviewed here https://my.waveapps.com/security/ and here https://my.waveapps.com/privacy/customer and the way they comply with GDPR regulations here https://my.waveapps.com/gdpr. Only your Psychologist has access to the system for the purpose of invoicing and fee collection.
The above data are needed for your attendance at the Practice and therefore your consent is required before we can register you as a client.
We take security of your data very seriously and will never share your personal details.
Data controller/processor: Koula Asimakopoulou-Gilbert, Practice Owner.
