Frequently Asked Questions

Practitioner psychologists will have the title ‘Dr’ in front of their name, but the way we work is slightly different.

Psychologists do lots of talking and lots of finding out about your life to think about how we can best support you through whatever difficulty you are facing. We will spend time understanding everything that is going on for you so that we can figure out how to help.

Psychologists and counsellors do not usually use medical equipment, and usually will not do any examinations at your appointment.

A very specific example of where this might happen is when the Adult Weight Management service may ask to take your height and weight, if you are happy to do so.

It is natural to feel frustrated, fed up, frightened and lots of other feelings about having a physical health difficulty.

It might be that you do not “need” to see a psychologist, but that someone who knows you thinks it might be helpful for you to talk to someone who can help you manage your worries or concerns about your medical condition.

Your first session with us will be an informal and relaxed ‘chat’ all about you.

A session usually lasts between 45 minutes to 1 hour.

You may just have one session, or a few, or a lot!

This depends on you and your situation.

It is important for us to keep what you say private.

However, it is sometimes useful for other people such as your medical team to know some things in order to help you. We will have a discussion first about what will be shared.

The only time we would definitely need to share things we have talked about is if we were very worried about you or someone else. We would then need to tell someone about it to keep everyone safe.