Questions we are often asked


Starting a personal development or career management journey with a coaching psychologist, it can take a little while to get comfortable. We appreciate how it can take courage to share troublesome experiences and emotions with a stranger, even a professional one. We do our best to make it as straightforward as possible whether you're new to psychological coaching or have talked to a professional coach about personal concerns in the past.

It's often a time of transition, crisis, confllct, frustration or fatigue, or some combination of them that moves people to approach a coaching psychologist, which can add to the stress of starting work with someone new. On the other hand, maybe you're feeling relaxed and energetic enough to take on some of the bigger issues in your life, and feel excited about it!

Here we outline the kinds of questions we are common. We hope you find them useful. Please phone or e-mail and let us know how we may help.


Are your conversations with clients absolutely confidential?

The content of our conversations with clients is confidential, except in two situations. One situation occurs from time to time: when a client asks us to speak to someone else - for example, someone we know whom they want to meet - about his or her concerns or agrees explicitly that we should do so; in this event, we agree clearly the limits of what we may share with any third party. The other has never happened with us but it might in principle: it would arise if a client were a threat of harm to themselvs or to other people.

Where coaching is paid for by an employer, a member of the client's family or another sponsor, an agreement is negotiated in which the payer receives information about the nature of the services delivered while the content of coaching remains confidential between the individual client and us.

Particularly with respect to confidentiality, we serve clients in accordance with the code of professional conduct of the British Psychological Society, www.bps.org.uk. Please call Positively Enabling Services on020 8654 0808 or email us at info@positivelyenabling.co.uk if you have any questions about our confidentiality policy.

The scope of confidentiality includes oversight by the Health Professions Council. As a chartered psychologist, the Principal of Positively Enabling, Kieran Duignan, is registered with the Health Professinals Council from May 2009. Just as Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs don't have authority to investigate files of our clients, the HPC don't have either. .

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How long does coaching or counselling take?

The length of time required for effective psychological coaching or counselling about personal development and career management depends on the goals of coaching, relevant levels of ability and of motivation of the person being coached and on the supports or barriers in his or her environment. At the outset, we negotiate a coaching plan which specifies services we offer over a specificed period of time. We are pleased to work out an appropriately flexible plan to meet your needs and circumstances in so far as practicable.

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What methods of payment do you accept? Can I use your service via my Private Health Insurance?

Cash, cheque, debit and credit cards. Normally, we can arrange payment by Private Health Insurance for counsellling and stress management; we need your insurance policy number and details of your insurer.

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What help do you offer someone with a 'disability'? What about adults with 'dyslexia'?

As you will be aware, people with disabilities vary greatly; each of them has a special combination of needs, circumstances and scope for development. So, any service we can offer depends on the particular individual and his or her situation.

Just like any person who is not 'disabled', a person with one or more disabilities can benefit from the clarity, direction and momentum of competent psychological assessment and coaching about how to go about making decisions and taking action to achieve personal or career goals.

A disabled person has a legal right to have his or her workplace adapted to support physical and perceptual access at work. The scope of this is not simply with regard to buildings but also to ensuring that furniture, equipment, documents, handtools and I T systems are adapted, in so far as reasonably practicable, to enable them to work safety. Kieran Duignan provides ergonomic assessment and design services to support this trade-off between an employer's legal responsibility under discrimination and health/safety legislation.

To date, we have served people whose disabilities include blindness, severe hearing loss, restricted mobility, loss of mobility and of strength in the upper limbs, severe depression and anxiety, and severe musculo-skeletal problems of the upper back and upper limbs.

If you have a disability which means you are not mobile, we should be pleased to discuss a home visit at an economical rate or to work in a partnering arrangement with another service provider.

We have also served clients with symptoms of 'dyslexia' and 'dyscalculia', recognised as problems with levels of attainment in reading and calculations of a minority of adults; naturally, when adults with such problems are in supervisory or managerial roles, how well the access, process and communicate information affects the performance of many others. We offer assessment using appropriate psychometric tests and personality measures, followed by coaching to assist the individual (and where appropriate, his or her line manager and colleagues) to work productively and safely. In partcular, we coach him or her to improve skills of recall and of communication (using drawings and word of mouth, in particular.)

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What if we really can't provide the help you need?

The responsible flip-side of being flexible and responsive is recognising professional limitations; we would naturally and rightly feel anxsious if a dentist proposed to address complaints beyond those in our mouths!

By placing an emphasis on careful assessment, we aim to get the best possible match for what we can do and what any enquirer needs. If you need another service or an additional one, we aim to put you in touch with information about a more appropriate professional service provider.

Bear in mind that many psychological conditions respond best to what is called a 'stepped' or 'graduated' care approach, so that you may do well from a course of counselling rather than just wait for psychotherapy through the NHS; by the time your turn in the NHS queue comes up, any treatment you receive may well work much faster if you have already begun to change your habits of thinking and action.

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Can you see me immediately?

We try to match your need with diaries of our staff. If you are under serious pressure to receive the help we offer - for example, because you are due to travel abroad but wish to meet one of us first - we will explore how to create the best possible arrangement to meet reasonable needs. Payment by any of the major credit cards means that delay can be kept to a miminum.

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How often can I come?

The frequency of your visits is for you and your psychologist to agree. Assume that you will need to plan for a series of weekly visits, or telephone consultations, to get off to a good start. Regularity is an effective condition of progress. Often people come in about a problem they have been struggling with for a while; so you may experience prompt relief yet to sustain change of behaviour, a bit more effort is normally required.

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Where are you located?

We are based north of Croydon town, near the London/Surrey/Kent borders. Free car parking is normally available nearby. The nearest railway stations are East Croydon, Elmers End and Norwood Junction. The Tramlink tram from Croydon, Elmers End and Birkbeck stations stops at Blackhorse Lane, just 200 metres' walk distant from us; if you get the tram from New Addington, you need to change at the Sandlilands stop.

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I would like to work with you but I live a long distance away. How can we deal with that?

While most of our personal clients since 1984 have come from London and South-East England, now much of our coaching is over the telephone (skype is free of charge); and assessment can be securely and confidentially administered online. This can be an excellent form of consultaton and easy to fit around busy lifestyles. All you need is a phone line somewhere quiet and private where you will not be disturbed.

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I prefer personal consultations but I'm very busy. What times are you available?

Appointments in person are by phone can be made between 6.30 a.m. and 7.45 p.m., Monday to Saturday inclusive, most of the year.

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When a psychologist relies on psychological tests, how can you know the_real_me, as an individual?

Any psychologist who relies solely on psychological tests may not understand you as you see yourself. That is why we don't rely on psychological measurement alone; with some clients, their use can assist them to reach decisions, with other clients, they are not relevant to the concerns they bring.

Yet data from psychological tests and other forms of measurement can be useful as tools of 'Discovery' and 'Envision' stages of working together. That is when we are engaged with coming up with alternative questions about your concerns. This is neither a random process nor simply a purely logical one; it is based on understanding how each individual, each group and each organsation or family functions as 'a system' of interlinked components, in its own right. When we serve as coaches, we give particular attention to real-world evidence about the parts of each of these systems-within-systems that are actually working ok and on how they can function better together.

Please note that we are licensed to use a host of psychological measurement instruments relevant to personal development and career management; so, we are not tied to the instruments of any particular publisher or distribution agency.

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What psychological tests, etc. do you use?

We select from a large variety of standardised psychological measuring instruments: measures of ability, interests, personality and attitudes. Most of them are relevant to people of average ability and above but some are designed to help people with psychological difficulties.

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