At the initial assessment appointment, you and your clinician meet at one of our clinics on a mutually agreed upon time. During the appointment, everything you say will be treated as confidential and in line with the ethical frameworks of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP). You will be informed of your rights as a client and given information about what to expect from the session. Typically within the first appointment, your clinician will ask you a fair amount of questions about your current situation. This is to learn about what your presenting problems are and allow for a discussion as to what the most suitable interventions may be. Standard questions include (but are not limited to):
- Please tell me a bit about what brought you here today?
- How do you find your problem impacts your daily life?
- Could you please describe a typical situation when you found yourself particularly affected by your problem?
- Is there anything in your background that you feel is important for me to know in relation to the therapy?
- How is your physical health? Your appetite? Concentration? Memory? Sleep?
- What would you hope to achieve in therapy?
- What would you like to work towards? What do your goals look like?
