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Terms and Conditions

By using J Tortosa Counselling, a service offered by Jesica Tortosa Encinas (“the counsellor”/ “the therapist”/ “me”/ “myself”/ “I”), you (“the client”/ “the clients”/ “you”/ “yourself” / “they” / “themselves”) are agreeing to be bound by the following Terms and Conditions. Within these Terms and Conditions J Tortosa Counselling is referred to as the “Service”.

This psychotherapeutic counselling Service is provided exclusively to individuals or couples who are at least 18 years of age and are currently (and throughout the duration of the whole counselling process) living in the UK as a resident (physically present in the UK for 183 days=6 months or more in a tax year).

Any agreement with the counsellor shall be construed and governed in all respects in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and any dispute or differences in relation to this agreement shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the British Courts.

Use of the Service

You agree to not use this Service for any unlawful or prohibited activities, and to not record or do live-stream of any videocall/audio-only sessions using any device such as a handheld recorder or any type of recording software, app or website such as YouTube, or share/distribute with third parties any of those recordings, including email counselling exchanges or live-chat exchange logs (which are created and stored as text by the nature of the medium), this is to ensure confidentiality is kept, in order to maintain a safe therapeutic relationship.

Any client/s found to be recording videocall/audio-only sessions or doing live-stream, storing or sending them to third parties; or sharing the aforementioned email exchanges or live-chat logs, will have therapy immediately terminated.

For the purpose of these Terms and Conditions, Spam shall refer to irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent over the internet, typically to large numbers of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware or virus (“Spam”).

You also agree to not disrupt the counsellor’s network or devices (by means of hacking) and to not send Spam, junk mail, bulk emails or mailing list emails that contain persons that have not specifically agreed to be included on that list.

It is important to acknowledge that it is not easy to seek help with regard to mental health concerns. The acceptance of the need for support and full consent, must come from the person or persons seeking counselling, this can be especially challenging to determine when it comes to couples’ counselling, because sometimes one of the partners feels pressured by their partner to go to therapy in order to carry on with the relationship, and it is important to acknowledge this situation. With this informed consent for psychotherapeutic counselling, you will be able to understand more about your situation, and together with the therapist, work on addressing your difficulties.

I offer a 15 minutes free initial consultation session through your preferred medium (videocall/live-chat/ email) where “we” (the counsellor and the client/s) will explore where you are at, how you are feeling, your goals and expectations for therapy, and to determine if myself as the counsellor and yourself as the client are a good match for your needs. In the case of email initial consultation, the clients will need to fill out a form after reading it themselves and talk briefly in the email outlining their main concerns.

This session can be used to experience first-hand and reflect on whether online therapy is something you feel comfortable with. However, you can change medium at the beginning of the therapy process if you think it could help you feel more comfortable.

Please note that after the initial consultation, the first full-length session is only free of charge if you wish to explore the whole contract via videocall with the therapist before signing, this way everything is transparent before commencing the therapeutic work.

Client responsibilities

Ethical & Legal Considerations

Professional Indemnity Insurance & Cyber Insurance

My professional indemnity & cyber-insurance company is Hiscox. Public liability insurance is unnecessary when carrying out online counselling because the premises where the client is, are physically separate from the counsellor’s premises. The client will be at their own home; therefore, the counsellor is not liable for any client injuries taken place at their residence.

What is the difference between public liability insurance and professional indemnity insurance?

Complaints

If you feel like you are not getting the service you need, I want to hear about your concerns so I can offer the best possible service. If you can please speak to me directly, it would be appreciated. If after talking to me about your concerns, you still feel you would like to go ahead with the official complaint, please see details on how to carry it out using the link below:

I am a member of the National Counselling Society (NCS) with membership number: NCS13-00418. They operate a complaints procedure which can be read and processed at: www.nationalcounsellingsociety.org/

NCS complaints procedure states: "We can't consider a complaint which is relating to anything over three years old. That's because there's little possibility of being able to conduct a fair process". Therefore, you have a time limit of 3 years to make an official complaint through the NCS ethical body.

Important note: Your personal information (full name, home address and contact details) will only be shared with my insurance company in the following cases: when the client raises a formal complaint against the therapist. In the event of an accidental data breach or cyber-attack.

Termination of Counselling Policy

You may withdraw anytime from the counselling contract giving notice 2 weeks before you intend to finish, this must be done via email to:

jtortosacounselling@protonmail.com

Important Note: Failure to give this notice will mean the client will be liable to pay a fee of £100 (individual)/£120 (couples).

Court Proceedings

In case of a court proceeding involving the client (unrelated to a complaint against the therapist), it is agreed that the therapist cannot testify regarding issues such as but not limited to, custody proceedings, divorce proceedings, or any other lawsuits that shall result in the disclosure of the records of the counsellor about the client, unless requested by subpoena or a coroner.

Non-attendance and Appointment Cancellation

Should you cancel a session within less than the agreed 48 hours’ notice sent via email, or fail to attend an appointment altogether without a sensible reason such as a medical emergency of the client or anyone dependent on them; then the full session fee of £50 (individual)/£60 (couples), will be charged at the beginning of the next session together with the fee for that session, making it a total of £100 (individual)/£120 (couples).

Please understand that my cancellation policy is not a penalty or a punishment. This cancellation policy is really important for my counselling practice because, while a medical doctor can see 35 patients in a day, a therapist like me generally sees a maximum of 6 or 7 per day. I reserve for you, and all my clients, a full hour of my time for the session and clinical notes. If a client cancels with less than a full 48-hour notice, I won’t be able to fill that time slot, and I’ll lose an entire hour from my work schedule.

Find me at

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@jtortosacounselling
#whenareyoutoday

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