Therapy is a very personal process. Sometimes it is necessary to talk about painful feelings or difficult decisions, so you may go through a period of feeling worse than when you started. However, therapy should enable you to feel better in the long-run. If you do experience a period of feeling worse, talk to your therapist about it to ensure you get the best out of your therapy.

It is essential that you are ready to engage in therapy; that you are ready to make changes. Change is not easy, and you may find the process difficult. You are encouraged to be frank and open, even if there are painful issues. It is also important that you understand that while we will work though difficulties with you we cannot solve them for you. Taking all that into consideration, usually it will take a number of counselling sessions before therapy starts to make a difference. However on rare occasions, a single session may be enough.

Therapy doesn’t work for everybody. It is not a universal cure-all. Because you may be talking about very personal and often painful things, it can sometimes be difficult to keep going. Despite this, it is often worth the effort as you can be helped to work through problems.

No. There are different methods and approaches to therapy, and your therapist will be able to talk to you about their particular method or approach.

Therapy can be just a few sessions and sometimes even one session may be enough. It may continue over several weeks or months. This depends on your individual situation. Your therapist should discuss this with you before and during your course of therapy. Sessions will usually last no more than one hour although the first session, also known as the assessment session, may take longer. Many people see their therapist once a week, but the frequency can vary according to your need and the type of therapy being offered. Before you begin therapy, make sure you ask your therapist about the process they are choosing to follow, so that you know what the plan is from the start.

Revive offers Integrative therapy where several models of therapy are blended together according to the needs of each unique client. No matter what approach is used, the relationship between you and your counsellor is key (known as the "therapeutic relationship"). Your counsellor will endeavour to work alongside you and offer you empathy in a confidential and safe space where you are not judged but accepted as a person of value. PERSON-CENTRED therapy is the main approach. This therapy is based on the idea that you enter into the therapeutic relationship with your counsellor where you are allowed to freely express and explore any emotions and feelings. The aim is to enable you to come to terms with the negative feelings that may have caused emotional problems, and develop personal skills. The objective is for you to become able to see yourself as a person with power and freedom to change. Depending on your needs your therapy may also include COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT) techniques and tools. CBT helps you identify and change unhelpful thinking styles which have become problematic for you i.e. negatively influence how you react or behave. You are encouraged to explore, challenge, and change unhelpful thoughts and expectations, with the use of exercises such as relaxation techniques, setting regular positive activities, and thought recording, to name but a few. PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPY may also be useful. This approach stresses the importance of the unconscious and past experience in shaping current behaviour. You are encouraged to talk with your therapist about childhood relationships with parents or main caregivers and other significant people as these relationships may have had a great influence on how you live as an adult today, shaping your personality. As you uncover and recognise these influences you are in a position to choose how to overcome hurdles they may have caused; developing emotional maturity and functioning better in the future.

The first appointment can also be known as the assessment session to see if counselling is suitable and could be helpful to you, or if the therapist's counselling style is suitable for you. This is done by the therapist listening attentively to your reasons for wanting counselling and the difficulties you are experiencing. You may also be asked to complete a simple assessment form that helps describe your feelings. This assessment may be repeated occasionally to help understand your progress. During this assessment session you and your therapist discuss and decide whether or not to continue to meet. If you both choose to continue, you will enter into a counselling agreement which covers, for example: length and number of sessions reasons why therapy may be terminated what you can expect from the therapist and yourself confidentiality boundaries what to do if you have concerns If the therapist cannot be helpful about an issue or issues they will endeavour to refer or signpost you to an individual or agency specialised or experienced in this. After the assessment you’ll start talking more about as much or as little as you want. You may decide not to bring everything into your first session or you may decide open up about everything. Your Counsellor will start to understand your challenges more and will start to get some insights into you. You’ll also start to understand more about how your Counsellor works and some insight into what you can expect.

You have the right to end counselling at any time... just give your counsellor as much notice as possible, and remember the cancellation policy (see details in FEES Section) Some reaons for ending may be.... You feel you have gained as much effectiveness from the process as you can and are ready to move on. You are not ready to continue - you would like to take a break or would like to see another counsellor who may adopt a different approach. As it is impossible for every counsellor to specialise in every "type" of counselling or every issue, your counsellor may discuss referral to another agency or counsellor with you. Repeated failure to attend appointments - this may be an indicator that either you have achieved what you want from the process so far, or that maybe you are not ready yet

Revive charges a very competitive rate of £35 per session. The fee is payable at the beginning of each session. You can either by cash, faster payment bank transfer or Paypal. Payment by card coming soon via SumUp

If you give less than 24 hours notice that you wish to cancel an appointment then, yes, a cancellation fee of £35 shall apply. No charge shall apply if you give more than 24 hours notice as we may be able to offer the appointment to a client on the waiting list.

Your counsellor offers a limited number of sessions to a local counselling charity. If you wish to receive counselling free of charge details of this charity are available upon request. Please be aware that as with most charitable agencies there may be a substantial waiting time to be seen.

Only you and your counsellor will know..... and anyone you tell. However, if your counsellor has a reasonable belief you immediately present a serious risk to your health e.g. you are presenting as intentional about taking your life, your counsellor will make every attempt to contact your GP or any other emergency contact you have given. This means your counsellor may have to disclose you have come to REVIVE for an appointment.

REVIVE treats your confidentiality very seriously..... but it cannot be guaranteed under every circumstance. For example, if your counsellor forms a reasonable belief that you: may present a serious risk to yourself or another person; have disclosed evidence of a serious criminal offence; or have disclosed information of risk involving a minor or vulnerable adult Then there is a duty of care and certain legal obligations that may mean disclosure of such information to the counsellor's supervisor, your GP, your emergency contact, or the police service. Such disclosure would not be made without your knowledge.

Your counsellor is registered with ICO (Information Commissioners Office) which means REVIVE is committed to protecting any information we hold on you. Your counsellor will keep your contact details and any other identifying information about you in a locked location, separate from session notes. The session notes will not identify you - they are very brief, factual and serve as a record for the counsellor to review the process of therapy. The notes are kept in a secure place for up to 3 years after counselling ends. They will not be available to any other person except in exceptional circumstances i.e. if subpoened by court. Please note, it is REVIVE's policy not to become involved in litigation issues such as marital separation, divorce, custody cases etc.

PRIVACY STATEMENT by RUTH STEWART of REVIVE COUNSELLING INTRODUCTION Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that I will do everything I reasonably can to ensure your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including: • Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for • Whether you have to provide it to me • How long I store it for • Whether there are other recipients of your personal information, and • Your data protection rights. I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can contact me via email. ‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office ZB332271. My postal address is: 2 Newtownards Road, Greyabbey, Co Down, BT22 2QQ. My phone number is 07907296793 and my email address is revivecounselling4u@gmail.com. MY LAWFUL BASIS FOR HOLDING AND USING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below: If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information. If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract. The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between you and I). HOW I USE YOUR INFORMATION Data Security: I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure by using password-protected devices with anti-virus software, and lockable filing locations. Any digitally stored documents pertaining to you will be password protected. Initial contact: When you contact me with an inquiry about my counselling services, I will collect information to help me satisfy your inquiry. This will include your name, telephone number and email address so I can set up your initial assessment appointment and can contact you if I need to amend or cancel your appointment due to unforeseen circumstances. If you do not wish to be contacted under any circumstances, you do not need to give a contact number or email address If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 3 months. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know. While you are accessing counselling: If you consent, your email address or phone number will be used to provide you with written confirmation of your appointment times if necessary. With your consent, you may receive documents or links to information pertinent to the content of our sessions. If we are communicating via online sessions , your email address or phone number may also be used to send you links to enter the waiting room of our online sessions. I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely and are not shared with any third party unless under circumstances as described below. At the beginning of your first appointment I will ask you to complete a personal details form containing your name, address, date of birth, contact information and also contact information for your GP. The form is stored in a locked location that can only be accessed by me. I may store your phone number in a keypad-locked mobile device however your name will not be stored in this device. Please be aware that I will not routinely contact your GP to inform your GP of your attendance as your attendance is confidential. To fulfil my duty of care towards you while also maintaining your confidentiality I will only contact your GP if it is necessary and should these circumstances arise I would discuss this with you wherever possible before contacting your GP. I am a Registered Member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and I abide by their professional code of ethics. Confidentiality will only be broken if there are legal or ethical obligations to disclose, for example, if you disclose abuse/neglect of a child or vulnerable adult or say something else that implies serious harm to yourself or others, or if a court of law requires me to disclose information. In the event that confidentiality must be broken I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. Counsellors are required to have regular supervision support so I may discuss our work with my supervisor. This would be done without identifying you and my supervisor is a counsellor who also abides by the BACP’s code of ethics regarding confidentiality. I keep brief notes of our therapy sessions for the purpose of assisting our work together. The notes help me to keep track of the issues that we are working on and they are for my use only. The notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you and they are stored securely in a locked location that only I have access to. Your therapy notes are stored separately to your personal details form. For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than one month. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will make a written note of the content to be kept with therapy session notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one month if it is not important. If necessary, I will insert an anonymised copy in the therapy session notes. After counselling has ended: Once counselling has ended your therapy session records will be kept for 3 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me. There are reasons why counsellors are required to keep some records after 3 years from the end of contact. For example, in the case of financial transactions e.g. HMRC or debt collection purposes, personal information such as name, date attended and amount paid, must be retained for as long as legally required in respect of tax or accounting purposes which is currently 7 complete tax years. Your personal details form is confidentially destroyed on ending your therapy sessions. Please note that I need to keep a record of your name, and your client reference number for 3 years after therapy ends. Your client reference number corresponds with a client reference number on your therapy notes and therefore enables me to identify your therapy notes if necessary e.g. should you wish to resume at a later date or notes have been subpoenaed by a Court of Law. THIRD PARTY RECIPIENTS OF PERSONAL DATA I share a limited amount of personal data with third parties in order to provide therapy services to you and to fulfil legal obligations in respect of tax and accounting purposes. For example, my accountant is permitted access to my invoices. I will never pass on your contact details to any third party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research. I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks e.g another agency you have agreed to engage with, or debt collection service etc. In such cases I have carefully selected which partners I work with e.g. my website provider WIX.COM, HMRC, Cloud Storage provider (Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive), Software Providers (Microsoft), doxy.me – this list is not exhaustive. I take great care to ensure that the Third Party has a policy that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. They should not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. YOUR RIGHTS I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters. You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you. To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing to the postal or email address above. If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures. If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. VISITORS TO MY WEBSITE When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, wix.com to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow wix.com to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website. I use wix.com analytics so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read wix.com privacy notice here https://www.wix.com/about/privacy. No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me. By accessing the website, you are consenting to the information collection and use practices described in this privacy notice. Should you choose to contact me using the contact form on the website none of the data that you supply will be stored by the website or passed to any third-party data processors. Instead, the data will be collated into an email and sent to me over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by local computers and devices. The website uses cookies and Google Analytics. Almost all websites use cookies which are small files that get put on your computer by websites as you surf them. These cookies can store lots of information which can have privacy implications. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google that gathers anonymous data on how people are using websites and then provides visitor statistics, details of page views etc. This service is used by many website owners as the data helps website owners to improve their websites. Some page elements are embedded from trusted third parties in order to provide you with Interactive Maps. This makes the website more helpful to you as a site visitor however most of these come with their own cookies. This applies to Google Maps. I do not control these cookies so I cannot guarantee what they do. In many cases the cookies are used to generate identical information to Google Analytics and indeed use Google Analytics, so opting out of Google Analytics will also opt you out of these cookies too. You can opt out of Google analytics and other Google services here – http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout and https://www.google.com/dashboard/. CHANGES TO PRIVACY NOTICE This privacy notice may be updated from time to time, so please check occasionally for any updates. {30 May 2022}

The British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists exist to safeguard clients and raise public confidence in the counselling professions by promoting and developing safe, ethical and competent practice in counselling and psychotherapy. Your counsellor is a registered member of the BACP which means they hold a reputable counselling qualification, have been deemed proficient by BACP and are committed to upholding the ethical standards set out in BACP Ethical Framework. You can see the BACP register and find out more by visiting www.bacp.co.uk