Therapy Agreement
Consent
By choosing to begin therapy with me, you are taken to have read,
understood, and agreed to the policies set out below. Entering therapy
on this basis constitutes your informed consent to the framework within
which therapy takes place.
Fee
My fee is £80 per session.
I may occasionally review my fee, but not more frequently than every 12
months from your start date. I will give you a minimum of four weeks’
written notice before any new fee takes effect. I have a limited number of
lower fee slots, and we will discuss this before arranging to have weekly
sessions.
Payment
I invoice monthly for all sessions attended or cancelled within 7 days,
except for in exceptional circumstances which can discuss on a case-by-
case basis. Payment is to be made by bank transfer within one week ofreceipt of my invoice. If there are any difficulties around this, please
discuss this with me in person.
Cancellation
Once we have agreed on a time, it is a recurring reservation in my
calendar. Your therapy and my practice both depend on this mutual
commitment.
I charge for cancellations made with less than 7 days’ notice. However, I
will offer replacement (if available) or offer the option of doing it online
or by phone to help you avoid being charged without receiving a
session. Exceptional circumstances can be discussed on a case-by-case
basis.
I aim to give you at least four weeks’ notice if I myself take a break,
below I give general details of the timing of the breaks I tend to take,
although this may vary. Any sessions that I cancel are obviously not
payable.
Sessions
Each session lasts 50 minutes. Unless we have agreed otherwise, I work in-person, weekly or twice weekly, on a regular day and at the same time. Please arrive on time or no more than five minutes early, as I may be in a session with another client.
You can buzz my intercom from 55 minutes past the previous hour (i.e. if your session is at 8am, please do not buzz before 7.55am). If I do not answer it will mean I have stepped out of my room briefly. If this is the case, please text me (my phone number is provided once we have arranged a first session) or wait a few minutes and buzz again.
If someone else enters or exits and you gain entry, you are welcome to come in and wait in the waiting area around the corner from my room on the 3rd floor. Please text me if this happens so I am aware and can collect you on time.
Between 9am and 4.30pm Monday - Friday the building reception is usually open. After the first session, if your session time is within these hours you are welcome to arrive early and buzz reception to be let in, but please bear in mind, at times the receptionist will be away from their desk and you may need to buzz a few times. You can then wait in the waiting area round the corner from my room. Please text me to let me know this is the case and I will collect you at the start of your session.
Confidentiality
I am bound by the BACP’s Ethical Framework which includes strict
guidelines regarding confidentiality.
Whilst everything you discuss with me is confidential, there are specific
caveats which you should be aware of:
1. I may discuss aspects of our conversations with a supervisor in
order to support my work with you. Your identity will always be
anonymised, i.e. no personally identifying information will be
shared.
2. Confidentiality may be broken if I believe there is plausible risk of
harm to yourself or others. Unless there are overwhelming
safeguarding or ethical concerns that prevent me from doing so, I
will always attempt to speak to you about this first so that your
perspective is heard.
3. I am required to act in accordance with my safeguarding
responsibilities under the Children Act 1989/2004 and the Care
Act 2014. If information arises in our work that gives me
reasonable cause to believe that a child or vulnerable adult is at
risk of harm, whether or not they are a client of mine, I may be
required to refer this to the relevant authorities. Where it is safe
and appropriate to do so, I will discuss this with you before taking
any action.
4. I am legally obliged to break confidentiality without prior notice in
three specific cases: terrorism, drug trafficking, and money
laundering.
Online & phone sessions
Where we agree to conduct sessions online or by phone, the same
confidentiality and ethical commitments apply. For video calls or phone calls, I use an end-to-end encrypted platform.
Please ensure your own environment is private and that you will not be
overheard. You are responsible for ensuring your own confidentiality at
your end. If we lose connection during a session, I will attempt to
reconnect or call you; if we are unable to re-establish contact, I will be in
touch by message.
Online sessions are subject to the same fee and cancellation terms as in-
person sessions unless we agreed a different fee.
Scheduled breaks / holidays:
I generally take scheduled breaks over the winter ‘holidays’ either side of
Christmas, and a spring break either side of the dates on which Easter
falls. I also take a summer break for all of August and sometimes the first
week of September. I will give you at least 4 weeks’ notice of these
dates.
Accessibility
My consulting room is located on the 3rd floor of the building. Access is
via an external flight of stairs with handrails on both sides. There is no lift.
Once at the top of the stairs, you will see the intercom system on the left,
and my buzzer is on the very right-hand column and has my name,
Rosanna Selway, written on it as well as a colleague’s name. Once inside the building, my room is located up two large flights of stairs and unfortunately there is no lift.
Safety, substance use, etc.
I cannot allow inappropriate physical contact, violence, or abusive
behaviour, and reserve the right to end or refuse our work together at my
discretion.
Furthermore, I require that clients do not attend sessions under the
influence of alcohol or substances, as this can affect the safety and
effectiveness of the work we do together.
Crisis support
Our work together takes place within your weekly sessions. I am not
available between sessions for crisis support, and I am not a crisis or
emergency service.
If you are in crisis between sessions, or feel at risk of harming yourself or
others, please contact one of the following:
Samaritans: 116 123 (free, 24/7)
Crisis text line: Text SHOUT to 85258
Your GP, or NHS 111 if your GP is unavailable
Emergency services: 999
Communication outside of sessions
Please limit communication outside of sessions to practical matters such as
rescheduling or cancellations and do so via email. I provide my number
once we have arranged to have a first session so that you can let me
know if you are running late, or if you have any issues finding or
accessing the building. I ask that you do not message me outside of this
by phone and use email instead.
I ask that you do not contact me via social media. I will not respond to
contact made through these channels, in order to protect the integrity and
boundaries of our therapeutic relationship.
Please note that if we cross paths in public, as a general rule I will wait
for you to acknowledge me first, in respect of your privacy and comfort.
I will offer a nod or a hello if you decide to acknowledge me but I will not
enter into conversation to protect the integrity and boundaries of our
therapeutic relationship.
Ending therapy
There is no requirement to commit to a particular number of sessions, and
you may end therapy at any time simply by letting me know.
Endings in therapy are important however, and final sessions are best agreed well in advance. There may be occasions where I need to bring our work to an end, for example due to illness, a change in my practice, or if I feel that the work is no longer appropriate or safe to continue. In such circumstances, I will give you as much notice as reasonably possible, explain my reasons as fully as I am able, and offer to support you in finding an alternative therapist where appropriate.
Scope of practice
I work as a psychotherapist for adults and am trained to support a wide
range of emotional and psychological difficulties.
There are some presentations that fall outside the scope of what I can
safely or effectively offer. These include, but are not limited to: active
psychosis, severe eating disorders requiring medical oversight, active
serious addiction and presentations that require a level of clinical support
beyond what weekly psychotherapy can provide.
If at any point I feel that your needs would be better met elsewhere, I will
discuss this with you openly and, where possible, support you in finding
an appropriate referral. Similarly, if you feel at any point that you need a
higher level of support, please do raise this with me.
Professional affiliation
I maintain ongoing status as a Registered Member of the British
Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
Ethics, feedback & complaints
I am committed to providing ethical and client-focused service and
welcome any feedback you might have. In the event that we are unable to resolve an issue between us, I adhere to the BACP’s Ethical Framework and Professional Conduct Procedure, which allows clients to raise complaints against a BACP member.
Any data protection complaints will be acknowledged within 30 days of
receipt prior to being investigated under the Data (Use and Access) Act
2025. Please refer to my Privacy Notice for more details.
Supervision
I commit to ongoing professional supervision with an registered member of the BPC (British Psychoanalytic Council). This supervisor has a confidentiality policy equivalent to mine.
Therapist incapacity
In the unlikely event that I become suddenly unable to practise, I have
made arrangements with a trusted colleague who is also bound by the
BACP ethical guidelines, who has agreed to contact my clients and
provide appropriate information and onward referrals. By agreeing to
this contract, you consent to your name and contact details being shared
with this person solely for this purpose.
Your details
Once we have an agreement for ongoing therapy, in addition to your
contact details, I will ask you to provide the following, in case I am ever
concerned for your health or safety and need to help you get support:
• Your date of birth
• Your address
• An emergency contact
• Your GP details
• Your email and phone number
I would not contact your GP without speaking to you first, unless I
believed the situation was so urgent that doing so was not possible.
Record-keeping
I keep brief written notes of our sessions. These notes are confidential,
stored securely, and not shared with any third party except as described
under Confidentiality above. I do not enter notes into AI systems.
I retain notes for seven years after our work together ends. After this
period, notes are securely destroyed.
You have the right to request access to the information I hold about you
at any time. Please refer to my Privacy Notice for details of your rights
under UK GDPR, including how to make a subject access request.
Reviews
I have a Google listing in order to be found locally by people seeking therapy
and ensure the viability of my practice. This necessarily means that
reviews can be left there.
To ensure there is no pressure on our therapeutic boundary, I do not
solicit reviews and would strongly discourage clients from leaving them.
To protect client privacy and uphold BACP ethical standards, I will not
respond to online reviews, as doing so (even just to say thank you) would
inadvertently confirm our therapeutic relationship, which breaches client
confidentiality and data protection laws.
If, after finishing therapy, you decide to leave a review on Google,
please make sure you are aware of Google’s terms and conditions
regarding how reviews are shown and used.
Clients outside of the UK
Please be aware that if you are accessing online therapy from outside the
United Kingdom, I operate under UK law and adhere to the ethical
frameworks of the BACP. It is your responsibility to confirm that receiving
therapy from a practitioner based in the UK is in compliance with the
legal regulations in your country.