Wessex Fertility - Consultation Booklet

Fertility Counselling

Fertility Counselling

How can Counselling help with fertility treatment?

Catherine Hughes - Wessex Fertility, The Freya Centre, Southampton 02380775288

• Fertility treatment can be a stressful, emotionally challenging experience for those undertaking it and for those supporting. Some patients have described it as an ‘emotional rollercoaster’. • Counselling offers you a confidential space to talk about your thoughts and feeling with an independent, trained, non-judgemental counsellor. It is a place where you can work through difficult situations and talk about the fears, anxieties, or distress that you may be experiencing during your fertility journey.

Jackie Riley - Hackwood Surgery, Basingstoke, or Broadwindsor, Dorset. 01308 868949, 07732556187

Vicky Parkin - East Sussex info@vickyparkin.co.uk (email preferred contact) or 07887 527955

Zoe Foster - Cowplain, Near Waterlooville info@thefosterpractice.co.uk or 07764667249

• Talking about your situation and how you feel can increase your ability to cope, make choices and change aspects of your situation.

Booking a Session Please discuss counselling with any of our medical team or to book a counselling appointment, please use contact details above. Sessions are 50 minutes (60 minutes at the Freya Centre). If you are unable to attend an appointment for any reason we would appreciate at least 24 hour’s notice of a cancellation or you may be charged for the missed session. CONFIDENTIALITY The counsellors are regulated by BACP/UKCP and the BICA guidelines. The information you disclose is confidential and will not be fed back to any other member of Wessex Fertility unless it raises concerns about risk of harm to yourself, others or to the welfare of a future child. If there is concern about risk, the counsellor will always discuss this with you first but will speak to the medical team. The counsellors are independently supervised as part of the requirements of BACP/ UKCP and BICA. Therefore, they may share some information anonymously with their supervisors for the benefit of their patients and for their own CPD. We recognize that going through fertility treatment can be emotionally distressing and may have an impact on your relationships with others. The emotions can be conflicting and intense. Support counselling provides an opportunity for you to explore your current situation – how you are feeling, thinking and behaving. It provides the opportunity to look at ways of supporting yourself through difficult periods, to look at options available and to be heard by an independent confidential, professional. There are two types of Counselling available Support counselling

• Undertaking certain treatments such as surrogacy or donating or receiving donated eggs, sperm or embryos raises many issues to consider now and into the future. Counselling for these types of treatments can guide and facilitate discussion, provide information and offer an opportunity to explore how you are feeling. Counselling availability As part of our on-going patient care and in line with the recommendations of the HFE Act 1990 we routinely offer counselling to all patients at any time before, during, or after fertility treatment. Counselling is available to individuals, to couples or to a group dependent upon need. Sometimes counselling may be a requirement as part of the treatment or may be recommended by a member of the medical team.

Counselling is included within the price of IVF and IUI treatment. Where it is not inclusive, a charge is payable in advance. Please refer to the price list.

The Counselling Service You can choose a counsellor from our team of qualified, accredited counsellors. They are guided by their professional codes of practice and values as set out by the British Infertility Counselling Association (BICA) and either by the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP)or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).

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