Clinical Psychologist & Chartered Psychologist
Copyright © 2014 Dr Alex Fowke. All Rights Reserved.
When you first contact me, I'll aim to call you back on the same day for a brief conversation to discuss what
you would like to work on in therapy with me. At this point we can arrange a time to meet for a more
detailed assessment of your needs.
What to expect
It's difficult to predict exactly how many sessions it will take for you to achieve your goals, and people progress through therapy at different rates. Some people may benefit from only a few sessions; others may find that a longer period of therapy is required. Generally speaking, the research evidence suggests that it can take between 10 and 20
sessions to tackle particularly entrenched and complex difficulties.
Following our assessment we will estimate how long it may take in terms of number of sessions and over how long,
so that you will know what you might be exepcted to invest in terms of time, effort and commitment, as well
as in terms of fees.
Research evidence has demonstrated that the regularity of sessions rather than the frequency of sessions has a
direct impact on the effectiveness of therapy so we will agree to meet either on a weekly or fortnightly basis.
How long will therapy take?
It's important to remember that therapists don't have a 'magic wand' to solve your problems, and improvements are unlikely to happen without effort on the part of the client as well as the therapist. You will be expected to take an active role in therapy and practice the things you learn in your own time.
Therapy will typically involve targetting some long-held beliefs and thoughts, as well as their emotional impact. For this reason, therapy can be very demanding and whilst I will help you through the process, you will need to be motivated to confront your problems and be willing to experience uncomfortable emotions.
For our first meeting, we will meet for approximately 50 minutes. This will give us plenty of time to consider if I might be able to help you and if you think we can work well together. There is no
obligation for us to arrange any further appointments at this stage if you don't think that my
approach would be useful for you. However, it is often useful for us to meet for two sessions
to develop a thorough understanding of your difficulties.
It is important that you feel listened to at every stage of therapy, and during our initial
meeting you will have the opportunity to talk about some of the main problems that
you'reexperiencing. We will start to consider what your specific goals for therapy may be and
how I may be able to help you to achieve them.
We will also talk about some of the practicalities of therapy, including our confidentiality
agreement, as well as how many sessions we may want to contract together and our treatment
plan. We may also talk about any potential difficulties that could get in the way of therapy
progressing. I may ask you to complete some questionnaires to help us to measure the
effectiveness of our work and monitor your progress towards reaching your therapy goals. .