Who are we?

We are psychologists who specialise in helping people with emotional difficulties related their physical health.

We have worked together for over ten years and we all have extensive experience of working in Clinical Health Psychology across both NHS and University settings.

The varied experience we bring together provides a unique opportunity to find the right specialist to support you.

We are all registered with the Health and Care Professions Council, meaning that we work to high ethical and professional standards guided by our professional bodies including The British Psychological Society (BPS).

Please go to our Meet the Team Page for more information.

What do we offer?

We work in collaboration with you to understand your health related difficulties, and the challenges you are facing.

We understand that dealing with illness or injury can have wide ranging effects on emotional well-being and can impact all areas of life. There are times when dealing with illness can make difficulties in other areas of life, and even past events, more difficult to cope with.

We are interested in understanding and supporting you with the particular difficulties you are having and the issues that are important to you. We aim to support you to find a way forward, in line with your own priorities and values.

Examples of the support we can provide include:

  • A space to talk about your health problem

  • Coping with changes in your life as a result of your health problem

  • Coping with chronic conditions

  • Managing the demands of treatment

  • Coping with other people’s reactions

  • Problem solving

  • Managing anxiety and worry

  • Support thinking through decisions about your health care/ treatment

  • Re-engaging with work and family roles

  • Re-evaluating priorities

We can provide telephone and/or face-to-face specialist psychological support. We are also now providing video sessions using, for example, Zoom.

Face-to-face appointments are available at several locations across Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Please see Meet the Team for further details of the type and location of support offered by each clinician.

How can you access CHPA’s services?

We offer an initial, free, 15 minute telephone conversation so that we can work out with you whether we are the most appropriate service for your needs.

Please see Meet the Team for contact details.

What will happen at your first appointment?

Your first appointment will be to discuss the nature of your difficulties, your expectations and goals for therapy. Following this, the type of help, recommended number and frequency of appointments will be discussed and agreed. Appointments are usually about 50 minutes long.

What about confidentiality?

We will explain about confidentiality at the beginning of our work with you and if you have particular questions or concerns it’s really important that you ask, so we can explain all you need to know.

There are some important limits to confidentiality:

  • If someone indicates a risk of harm to themselves or others, or if we hear of someone else at risk of harm, we have a duty to share this information with other agencies in order to protect whoever is at risk.

  • It is sometimes helpful to share information with other medical professionals or organisations involved in your care. This will be discussed and agreed with you.

  • Good professional practice for Clinical and Health psychologists includes receiving supervision of their practice by another suitably qualified therapist. This means that individual work is discussed. However, supervising therapists are also bound by confidentiality.