How I work | Ian Baker Psychother

How I work

I offer a confidential space for you to explore and understand difficult feelings and thoughts without being judged. This space is just for you and over time can feel safe enough to really share your deepest concerns and issues. Each session will last an hour and we will see each other weekly at a time we agree that is convenient for us both. This then becomes your regular slot. The work will involve you talking, and me listening, asking questions and reflecting back to you what I hear and how I experience you.

I will sometimes provide education on different psychological concepts that might help, as well as work with you to develop skills to help manage troubling emotions, thoughts and body sensations.

Sometimes I will invite you to use other creative approaches like visualisation or drawing, if you would find that helpful.

Initial assessment

The first step in us working together is to contact me to arrange an initial assessment. This will also last an hour and its an opportunity for you to meet me to see if I am someone you would like to work with, tell me about the issues you need help with, and for me to see make a judgement about whether I feel I can help you with these issues. You will have the opportunity to ask me questions about my background and experience, the therapy approach I use and anything else you may wish to know. This is the beginning of the assessment process, which would continue for the first few sessions so that you can tell me about your history and life experiences, which might be impacting on the issues you are currently facing.

Before we meet for the initial assessment I would also normally arrange a short telephone conversation with you, to get an initial understanding of the issues you are bringing and also to collect a few details for my records, such as your contact details and address.

Ongoing sessions

Once we've agreed to work together we will both sign a contract which agrees things like what happens if you need to cancel a session and what to do when you want to end the work together. After that we will have ongoing weekly sessions with regular reviews to make sure that our work together is helping with the issues you brought and to review the current context for our work together.

People often ask how many sessions they need. This is completely dependent on each person's circumstances and whether the issues people are bringing are specific or general in nature. I offer mainly medium-term and long-term work though because I believe the importance of the relationship between the therapist and client is key and this takes time to develop. Also most of the people I work with are bringing issues that they have lived with in one way or another for many years and it takes time to replace these old ways of being with new healthier patterns.

During our work together I take aspects of the work to a supervisor in order to have another professional perspective. Your anonymity is respected throughout this process.

Fee

I charge the following fees for each session, including initial assessments:

Crystal Palace £65 (one hour sessions)
Online £65 (one hour sessions)