Therapy terms and conditions

Please read these Terms and Conditions carefully before booking our services. They apply to all services you book with us, whether you book directly or through our therapist matching service. By booking our services you agree to these Terms and Conditions.

Please do not book our services if you do not agree to them. Your use of our website is governed by our Website Terms and Conditions (https://www.abodetherapy.co.uk/website-terms-and-conditions). Our Privacy Policy (https://www.abodetherapy.co.uk/privacy-policy) explains how we use your personal data. Neither forms part of these Terms and Conditions.

We may update these Terms and Conditions from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the law or in how we provide our services. We will tell you about any significant changes before they take effect, and changes will not affect sessions or collections you have already booked and paid for. These Terms and Conditions are effective from 1st November 2026.

Background

Abode ( www.abodetherapy.co.uk) is operated by Abode Therapy Ltd. which is registered in England and Wales under the company number 12885677. Our company address is: 6 Genesis Business Centre, Redkiln Way, Horsham, West Sussex, RH13 5QH

Abode Therapy Ltd. provides remote psychological therapy and assessment services to adults, together with a therapist matching service that connects clients with our associate clinicians. When you book our services, whether directly or through our therapist matching service, your contract is with Abode Therapy Ltd. Your therapy or assessment is delivered by a self-employed associate clinician, who is clinically responsible for your care;

All sessions are delivered remotely by video or telephone. We do not offer in-person sessions;

You must be aged 18 or over to register with us and to use the services listed on our website;

OUR SERVICES ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR ANYONE EXPERIENCING A CRISIS. If you believe you are at risk of harming yourself, please dial 999 or go to Accident and Emergency (A&E) at your local hospital. Other phone numbers for crisis are provided below.

Our services are not a substitute for emergency, crisis or psychiatric care, or for care from your GP or other medical professionals. Our clinicians support you to work towards your personal goals. We do not provide diagnoses, prescribe medication or provide neurodevelopmental assessments, court reports or services to children.

Definitions and interpretation

Abode Therapy Ltd. is referred to as "Abode”, “we", "us" and "our", and you the user are referred to as "customer", "client", "you" or "your";

We work with self-employed associate clinicians, including clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists, who are referred to as "therapist/s”, “clinician/s" or "associate/s";

"Website Terms” means our Website Terms and Conditions, which govern your use of our website;

"Website" means www.abodetherapy.co.uk;

"Collection" refers to a set of six or twelve individual therapy sessions bought together from our collections page;

"Session" refers to an assessment, an individual or couples therapy session, and a single therapy session within a collection;

"Registration" means your registration with us when you book a consultation, session or collection;

“Services” means our therapist matching service, consultations, assessments, sessions and collections;

Singular includes the plural and vice versa.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an essential part of therapy. What you discuss with your clinician is confidential. It will only be shared with the people involved in arranging and delivering your care, and otherwise only as set out below. Your clinician, or we, may share information without your consent where:

there is a risk of serious harm to you or to another person;

there are concerns that a child or vulnerable adult is at risk of harm, abuse or neglect;

we are required to do so by law, a court order or a regulator; or

it is necessary for the prevention, detection or prosecution of serious crime.

Where it is possible and safe to do so, your clinician will discuss this with you first. Your clinician takes part in regular clinical supervision, as required by their professional body. Identifying information is kept to a minimum in supervision, and supervisors are bound by the same duty of confidentiality. More details are set out in our Client Confidentiality and Consent form, and your clinician will summarise them at your first session.

Your personal data

We will use your personal data as set out in our Privacy Policy (https://www.abodetherapy.co.uk/privacy-policy). Your clinician keeps clinical notes of your sessions and is responsible for keeping them secure in line with UK data protection law. We do not record sessions, and we do not use artificial intelligence tools to process your personal data. Clinical records are kept for 7 years after your last session.

Registration

Registration is required when you book an appointment or collection, so that we may contact you. You are responsible for providing us with a valid email address and/or phone number.

By registering you agree that you:

Are over the age of 18;

Are a UK resident;

Understand that your contract for our Services is with Abode Therapy Ltd., and that your therapy or assessment will be delivered by an associate clinician who is clinically responsible for your care;

Are providing us with accurate information, and will tell us promptly if any of your details (including your GP or emergency contact details) change.

Information about you will be processed in line with our Privacy Policy (https://www.abodetherapy.co.uk/privacy-policy) and our Client Confidentiality and Consent form.

Free 15-minute consultation

The initial consultation is for the following purposes:

For one of our clinicians to assess whether our Services are suitable for you;

To provide a brief understanding of the difficulties you wish to address in therapy;

For you to decide whether you would like to proceed with therapy services.

We or the clinician may decide, at or after the consultation, that our Services are not suitable for you. No clinical advice will be given in the initial consultation.

Therapist matching service

If you use our therapist matching service, we will use the information you give us in our matching form to suggest a suitable clinician. The quality of any match depends on the accuracy and completeness of the information you give us. Matches are always made by a person. A match is not a guarantee that the clinician will be able to work with you. Clinicians are not obliged to accept any client. If a match does not go ahead, we will try to suggest another clinician. Once you are matched, you will book and pay for your sessions with us in the usual way, and these Terms and Conditions will apply.

Fees and payment

Our current fees are set out on our website and in our Client Confidentiality and Consent form. Fees for assessments, sessions and collections are paid at the time of booking, before the session starts, through Jane App’s payment provider Stripe (https://stripe.com/gb/privacy). All payments must be made to Abode. You must not make any payment directly to your clinician. We are not VAT registered, so no VAT is charged. We may change our fees from time to time, but any change will not apply to sessions or collections you have already booked and paid for.

Insurance-funded sessions

Before your first assessment or therapy appointment, you must give us details of your insurance membership and your insurer’s pre-authorisation to proceed with sessions with your selected Abode clinician. We bill insurers through Healthcode. We are not a party to the contract between you and your insurer, and you are responsible for checking how many sessions your insurer will fund. If your insurer does not pay for a session, for example because cover is withdrawn, the session is not authorised, it is a missed or late-cancelled session, or you must pay an excess or member contribution, you will be responsible for settling the outstanding fee(s).

Your right to cancel

If you book our Services online, you have a legal right to cancel within 14 days of booking without giving a reason. If you ask for a session to take place within those 14 days, you agree that we may start providing the Services during that period. If you then cancel within the 14 days, we will refund what you have paid, less a proportionate amount for any sessions already provided. To cancel, email us at welcome@abodetherapy.co.uk. Nothing in the cancellation policy below affects this legal right.

Cancellation, lateness and missed appointments

Our cancellation policy is also summarised in our Client Confidentiality and Consent form. If you cancel or rearrange a session with less than 24 hours’ notice, the full session fee will be charged, because we are unlikely to be able to offer the appointment to someone else at short notice. In exceptional circumstances we may, at our discretion, waive this charge.

If you cancel a session (including one within a collection) with more than 24 hours’ notice, you will not be charged. You can re-book the session, and the fee will be held as credit on your account until you do so, or you can ask us for a refund of the session fee.

If a session within a 'collection' is cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice, this will be counted as a missed session and will not be refunded or replaced. For example, if you have four sessions remaining and miss/cancel one of these four with less than 24 hours' notice, you will then have three sessions remaining.

If you have not joined the session (video platform waiting room) within 15 minutes of the session start time, your clinician may end the session. It will be treated as a missed session and the full fee will be charged. If you join within 15 minutes, you will be entitled to the remaining session time, but the session will not be extended and will finish at the expected time.

If you attend a session under the influence of drugs or alcohol, your clinician may end the session early, and the full session fee will be charged.

If we or your clinician cancel a session, you can choose either a full refund for that session or to re-book it at no extra charge.

Suitability and ending therapy

Clients can book our Services online without being screened first. We and our clinicians therefore reserve the right to decline to provide Services to you, or to decline a match, at any time, including after you have booked. Clinicians are not obliged to accept any client. You or your clinician may end therapy at any time, including during a collection. We recommend that you give notice where possible to allow for a planned ending. If we or your clinician decline or stop providing Services, we will try to signpost you to other services where appropriate, and we will refund the cost of any sessions you have paid for which have not started.

Safeguarding and conduct

We and our clinicians are committed to safeguarding the welfare of our clients and others. If we or your clinician have concerns about your safety or the safety of others, we may share information with relevant agencies, as explained in the Confidentiality section.

You must behave respectfully towards your clinician and our team. If you behave inappropriately during a session, including any sexually inappropriate behaviour, exposure, or abusive, threatening or discriminatory behaviour, your clinician may end the session immediately. We may then end our contract with you, block you from booking our Services and report the matter to the police or any other relevant authority. The session concerned will not be refunded, but we will refund any other sessions you have paid for which have not started.

Online sessions

Sessions take place by video using Zoom, Google Meet or Jane App, or by telephone. These providers have their own terms and privacy policies. Please join from a quiet, private space where you cannot be overheard or interrupted, using a device with a working camera, microphone and reliable internet connection. If a session cannot go ahead or is interrupted because of a technical problem on our or your clinician’s side, we will offer you a replacement session or a refund for the time lost.

Recording of sessions

We do not record sessions. You must not record a session unless you have asked your clinician first and they have agreed. Your clinician may refuse. Any recording made with your clinician’s agreement is for your own personal use only and must not be shared with anyone else or published, including on social media.

Couples therapy

Where you attend couples therapy, each of you is our client and must agree to these Terms and Conditions. Your clinician will explain at the start of therapy how they handle information that one partner shares with them separately. Clinical notes may contain information about both of you, and this may affect what can be released if one of you asks for a copy of the notes.

Crisis

We are unable to offer services to people under the age of 18. If you are under 18 and looking for support, you may find information on Childline (www.childline.org.uk) or by phoning them (0800 1111).

Your clinician

Your therapy or assessment is delivered by a self-employed associate clinician. Your clinician is clinically responsible for your care, including clinical decisions and the clinical notes they keep. They are regulated by their own professional body and hold their own professional indemnity insurance. Before a clinician is listed on our website, we check their qualifications and professional registration and require an enhanced DBS check. We ask clinicians to confirm annually that their registration remains in good standing. We do not guarantee any particular outcome from therapy. If you have a concern about your clinician, please tell us (see Complaints below).

Depending on their profession, our clinicians are registered with or regulated by one or more of the following:

The British Psychological Society

The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies

The Health and Care Professions Council

You can check your clinician’s registration on the relevant public register.

Assessments

Assessments are not intended to provide a diagnosis (we and our clinicians do not offer diagnoses) or medical advice. The assessment report is a summary of the information you provided in the session, together with ideas and recommendations from your clinician based on that information. They are not medical advice and should not be used in place of medical advice from a medical professional. You remain responsible for the decisions you make about your own health and wellbeing, including whether to follow any recommendations.

Collections

Collections are a set of six or twelve individual sessions. Sessions in a six session collection must be used within 6 months of purchase, and sessions in a twelve session collection must be used within 12 months of purchase. The names of the collections (e.g., 'Be Calm') are not a guarantee or promise of outcome. They give your clinician information about the goals you may have for therapy. We and our clinicians do not guarantee any particular outcome following the completion of a collection. If you choose to have more sessions after completing your collection, these will be charged at the standard individual session rate, or you can purchase another collection.

Liability

We will provide our Services with reasonable care and skill. We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms and Conditions or our failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable, or that is caused by events outside our reasonable control.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law. Our Services are provided for your private use only, and we are not liable for any business losses. Your legal rights as a consumer are not affected by these Terms and Conditions.

Your use of our website, including any reliance on its content, is governed by our Website Terms.

Clinician profiles on our website are based on information provided by our clinicians. We check their qualifications and registration when they join us, but a clinician’s registration status may change after these checks. If you have any concerns, you can check your clinician’s registration on the relevant public register or contact us.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you have suitable technology and reliable internet access to attend your sessions.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about our Services or your clinician, please contact us at welcome@abodetherapy.co.uk. We will acknowledge your complaint and aim to respond within 10 working days. We will share your complaint with your clinician where this is needed to investigate it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also raise a concern with your clinician’s professional or regulatory body, such as the Health and Care Professions Council (www.hcpc-uk.org) or the British Psychological Society. Complaints about how we use your personal data are dealt with as set out in our Privacy Policy.

General

If we do not enforce a right straight away, this does not mean we have waived it. If a court or regulator decides that any part of these Terms and Conditions is invalid or unenforceable, the rest will still apply. Nobody other than you and us has any right to enforce these Terms and Conditions.

Governing law

These Terms and Conditions are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales, or, if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, in the courts of your home country.

Contact us

Email: welcome@abodetherapy.co.uk

Post: Abode Therapy Ltd., 6 Genesis Business Centre, Redkiln Way, Horsham, West Sussex, RH13 5QH