Counselling

Counselling provides the space and time to think and talk about things that matter to you. People find it helpful for different reasons. For example, it can:

• Help you talk about something difficult that you’ve never shared before
• Enable you to explore parts of yourself and your relationships, and help you make sense of them
• Give you the opportunity to let out stress and teach you how to cope better
•Just provide comfort that someone is there for you
• Serve as a safe place to work things out

Counselling isn’t about the counsellor giving you all the answers — rather, it’s about them supporting you as you find your own solutions, and helping to build your confidence and self-esteem.

There may be occasions when counselling does not meet your current needs. We explore all available options as part of our assessment process. We also provide other services which we may recommend.

Some examples of when counselling may be unsuitable include:
• People who are at current risk of suicide — if you are having active thoughts about suicide and you are planning how to do it, there is help available.
• People who are self-harming and require medical attention
• People with complex or severe mental health diagnoses
• People experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• People who have had little benefit from many different therapies over a long period of time
• People who present themselves as a risk to themselves or others
• People who are currently receiving therapy from another person or service

We will contact you to arrange an initial meeting with a staff counsellor. This is an opportunity to discuss your registration, update any details that may have changed since registration, and ask any questions you may have.

If after this initial meeting counselling is deemed appropriate for your needs, a counsellor will be assigned to you and they will contact you to arrange your first appointment. This is called an assessment session (which is free) and is different from any subsequent counselling sessions. This session, which will last around 50 minutes, is an opportunity for you and the counsellor to decide if you will work together. If the counsellor feels that you need to be referred to a more experienced counsellor within the team, they will discuss this with you.

At Devon Mind, we can offer up to 20 sessions of counselling. However, we assess this on a case-by-case basis to ensure we are meeting your needs. Some people may need more sessions and others can benefit from fewer.

Counselling sessions are commonly delivered weekly, but can be fortnightly if this works better for you. Each session is 50 minutes in length.

A counsellor will contact you 2-3 weeks prior to allocation to undertake an initial assessment to determine suitability for our counselling service. We will try and contact you initially by phone and if unsuccessful we will email you to try and arrange the initial assessment appointment, so please keep an eye on your email inbox, including the spam folder.

Currently, we are able to offer in-person counselling in Plymouth only. We also offer online and telephone counselling for people who live outside of Plymouth.

We have qualified staff counsellors who have completed a minimum Level 4 Diploma in Counselling and have many years of experience. All our staff counsellors are registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or the National Counselling Society (NCS). As well as staff counsellors, our counselling team also includes qualified volunteer counsellors and counsellors-in-training (working towards their Level 4 award).

Your initial assessment session is £15. If you do not proceed to counselling, then this is refunded to you. We then charge £37.50 per counselling session.

Each counselling session we deliver costs Devon Mind just over £60 — this includes staff costs, insurance costs, supervision for our counsellors, and building costs (rent, lighting, heating, etc.). We also cover the costs of annual BACP registration and supervision for our counsellors and we need to make sure they can access ongoing continuing professional development training, which is a requirement of their role.

Devon Mind fundraises annually to ensure we can continue to deliver a counselling service, but this only covers around 50% of the costs, which is why we have to ask people to pay a reduced charge of £37.50 per session. We are always looking for additional funding to cover these costs, and when we have this, we will always offer free sessions when we can.

We will provide you with a small pack so that you have all the information you need. This includes practical information about what you need to do if you have to cancel a session, how you can pay for your sessions, and information on data protection and your privacy rights. We will also outline what forms we would like you to complete to help us evaluate how impactful our counselling service is and what we can do better.

We request that people have a minimum 2-month gap from their last counselling intervention, before registering for Devon Mind counselling.