Counselling
Is counselling available?
Fertility treatment can impose emotional strain and may raise dilemmas. These may be more easily resolved after talking to a qualified counsellor who specialises in fertility issues.
Counselling offers you an opportunity to share and explore difficult feelings with someone who is not personally involved, but who understands your situation. Counselling may be able to help you discover new ways of coping and to clarify areas of uncertainty while looking at the alternatives available to you.
The counselling service is available free of charge for all couples or individuals to provide support, guidance, and reassurance and to discuss any non-medical problems related to treatment.
What is counselling?
Counselling is different from longer term therapies such as psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in that it generally consists of a single or relatively short course of sessions. It starts from addressing the immediate issues in your life (such as infertility), provides you with a quiet space where you can mull over those things that are worrying you and gives you the support and information you need to make decisions with which you feel comfortable.
How does counselling work?
Essentially, the process of counselling enables you to explore your thoughts, feelings and beliefs in order to develop a better understanding of your present situation. You may discover ways of coping and living more satisfactorily, begin to feel more in control of your life and the direction in which it is going. You may decide to make changes in your life or come to terms with things that cannot be changed.
Counsellors will not judge you or give advice. What they do provide is a secure, confidential relationship in which to explore any problems you have and to help you try to make sense of them. Counsellors will not divulge to others anything you have discussed with them unless you give your permission for them to do so.
Who may it help?
There are times when any one of us can feel down and unable to cope and there are many reasons for seeking help. In the context of infertility, the prospect of childlessness, together with all the investigations and treatments, frequently leads to feelings of anxiety, stress and depression. Tensions and conflicts within close relationships are common. You may manage to deal successfully with all of these feelings by yourself, with the support of your partner, family or friends or you may consider counselling. Not everyone will need counselling and few will be in need of major psychological help. However, the potential for emotional damage to you or your relationship is always present. The pressure to be seen to be coping can be enormous but simply burying feelings is rarely a successful long term strategy.
Counselling may also be helpful if you are uncertain at any stage about the options open to you. These may include specific considerations such as proceeding with or postponing treatment, use of donated eggs or sperm or withdrawing from any further treatment. Sadly, not everyone who starts treatment will become pregnant and deciding when to stop is not easy, particularly when there appears to be no clear reason for the lack of success. For some individuals letting go and moving on can bring a profound sense of relief but for others the experience may be difficult and traumatic. A skilled counsellor can support you through this period of grief and major emotional adjustment and will be able to explore alternatives with you when you feel ready to do so.
Will the counsellor be able to give me information about my treatment?
Although the counsellor will discuss issues such as ways of coping with your work whilst undergoing treatment or with the stress related to particular stages of your treatment, if you need detailed medical information this will be provided by the doctor or nurses at the Assisted Conception Unit. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the authority which licenses assisted conception centres in the United Kingdom, states in their Code of Practice that counselling should be clearly distinguished from the giving of information and should consist of three types:
At the Assisted Conception Unit we regard the provision of counselling, covering all three types, as a vital and integral part of the overall service we offer you.
Are the counsellors at the Assisted Conception Unit fully trained?
The counselling service at the Assisted Conception Unit is provided by two professionally qualified counsellors, both of whom hold an Advanced Diploma in Counselling and have extensive experience in the field of infertility. Both counsellors are registered with the United Kingdom Register of Counsellors (UKRC), are members of the British Infertility Counselling Association (BICA), the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and abide by the BACP Code of Ethics.
Is there a charge for the counselling service?
There is no separate charge for the counselling service. Sessions are freely available whether you are receiving treatment funded by your local Health Authority or whether you are paying privately.
How long does counselling last?
A single counselling session lasts approximately one hour. You may feel a single session will meet your needs but sometimes a further one or two sessions may be beneficial.
These additional sessions are usually agreed with the counsellor and arranged at the end of your initial session. You may use the counselling service as often as you feel you need during your treatment and at any time after your treatment has finished.
How do I make contact?
The service is available most weekdays, from 9.00am to 4.00pm, and appointments can usually be arranged within one or two working days. You can contact the service by telephoning the Assisted Conception Unit and asking to speak to either Sheila Pike or Penny Greenshields. If neither counsellor is available, please leave a message, either with Reception or on the answerphone service available outside of the above hours and one of us will get back to you as quickly as possible.
Alternatively, if you wish, you can arrange an appointment directly with the Receptionist who usually holds our appointment diary. If counselling has been recommended to you by one of the Unit's doctors or nurses and you would like to follow this up, you can of course make an appointment at Reception before you leave the Unit. If you would like an initial introduction before making an appointment, we would be happy to meet you if we are available at that time.
If you are unable to attend the Assisted Conception Unit for any reason and would prefer a counsellor to speak to you by phone, a telephone counselling session can be arranged for you in exactly the same way as a session at the Unit.
Appointments and enquiries:
Sheila Pike and Penny Greenshields can be contacted on 0114 226 8050
