Pete Holloway
Dramatherapist/Psychotherapist
THE WAY I WORK
Finding a therapist who you feel you can work with is important. I hope this information gives you some idea of my practice and the thoughtfulness with which I approach my work.
Referrals
I prefer to receive self-referrals. Individuals, couples and families seeking help can contact me direct by text, phone or email. For couples, both partners must consent to the referral, and for families all adults and any competent minors should give their consent. Initial contact will be simply to arrange a first appointment, and there is no need at that stage to outline the nature of why you are seeking help.
I also accept enquiries from solicitors for medico-legal work and/or reports. I expect that clients will already have given their consent for their solicitor to contact me.
Waiting Time
I aim to offer an initial appointment within four weeks of referral.
If we agree to work together at the end of the initial appointment, I will give you a clear indication of when your treatment is likely to start. This is usually within 4-6 weeks of your initial appointment.
Initial Meeting
Our initial meeting lasts for an hour (80 minutes for couples and families) and is our first opportunity to define and explore the issues that have brought you into therapy. Before hearing from you, I will tell you a little about my experience, my philosophy and my 'rules and permissions' - these, together with payment arrangements, out-of-session contact and negotiating breaks, form our therapeutic contract, so it is important that you know about them from the outset. These 'rules and permissions' are my undertaking around issues of confidentiality, professional trust, emotional & physical safety and you being able to bring to sessions whatever you need to discuss.
Remember, this is your chance to assess me as your potential therapist - in many ways your assessment of me is more important than my "assessment" of you.
Despite having worked in NHS mental health services for such a long time, I have managed to keep a distance from the 'medical model' of mental "illness", preferring to think of my clients as people in distress and that distress is the price we pay for being human. My job is to help you make links between experiences, feelings of distress and the way you may find yourself behaving, in order to change habitual patterns.
At the end of the initial meeting, I would expect that we had agreed how the issues that have brought you into therapy relate to your experiences in life, and suggest a way that we might begin to approach them.
TreatmentSessions
I do not prescribe a course of treatment (either in terms of the particular mode of therapy, or in terms of its duration). Making sense of the issues you bring is an unfolding process as you extend your trust in me and I get to better understand what it means to be you. I therefore do not suggest or adhere to a particular defined approach (e.g. CBT or psychodynamic) as I see it as my job to bring all my knowledge, skills and techniques from a variety of therapy perspectives to your problems and to create a truly individualised approach which fits with your beliefs, values and ways of understanding the world.
Similarly, I do not specify from the start the number of sessions and/or duration of therapy. I do not believe in artificial time-limits to making changes in your life (although some people gain enormous benefit from one or two consultations), nor do I believe in extending therapy beyond its productive usefulness. The duration of your therapy will be by mutual negotiation and will be dictated by your sense of when it has served your purpose.
I generally offer individual and couple therapy on a weekly basis, with 50 minute sessions (individuals) and 75 minute sessions (couples) on the same day and time each week. Some people are nervous about the intensity of therapy and what it might reveal, in which case I may initially offer fortnightly sessions for a period of time until sufficient trust in the process has been established.
Session
Recording
For regular therapy sessions I do not keep formal notes of what has been discussed in sessions, other than my own personal notes which are anonymised and do not carry any information which would identify you. I do maintain a record of your contact details, when you were referred, sessions attended and receipts for payments. Any letters you send me directly or creative work you produce in therapy remain your property and do not form part of your 'clinical record'. You may ask me to keep any such documents or images on your behalf for the duration of therapy, but they will always be returned to you at the close of our work.
If you are seeing me for the purposes of medico-legal work and/or report, or other court-requested report, I will keep more detailed notes and will discuss the report with you before it is released.
Some clients find it helpful to record sessions on a mobile device to refresh their memory between sessions - I am happy to agree to any such requests.
Ethical
Srandards
I abide by the Health & Care Professions Council Standards of Performance, Conduct & Ethics. You can find the document by following this link:
http://www.hpc-uk.org/aboutregistration/standards/standardsofconductperformanceandethics/
My HCPC registration number is AS01896. You can check my registration status here:
My practice is insured with Holistic Insurance Services