Insights
The things people ask us before they book
Most of what gets written about therapy is either a leaflet or an advertisement. These are neither. They are the long answers to the questions that come up most often at the practice — what a first session actually involves, how to tell the difference between a rough patch and a pattern, what helps an anxious teenager, and when coaching is the wrong tool for the job.
They are written to be useful whether or not you ever contact us. Read one, take what applies, and ignore the rest.
What we write about
- Choosing support1article
- Parents & families1article
- Couples & relationships1article
- Starting therapy1article
Start here
Your first therapy session: what actually happens
A minute-by-minute account of a first counselling session: the paperwork, the questions, what you do not have to talk about, and how to tell if it is working.
- You will be asked what has brought you, and you are allowed to answer it badly.
- Confidentiality and its limits should be explained to you in the first ten minutes, in plain language.
- Nothing has to be disclosed on day one — including trauma, and including the reason you almost cancelled.
Last reviewed
More articles
Written for the week you are actually having
Each one is a long read rather than a summary, because the short version of most of these questions is not much use to anybody.
Choosing support7 min readCoaching or therapy?
An honest comparison of coaching and therapy: history versus future, symptoms versus goals, UK regulation, and five questions that usually settle it.
Read the article
Parents & families8 min readSupporting a teenager through anxiety
Teenage anxiety often arrives as anger, stomach aches and avoidance rather than visible worry. Why reassurance backfires, and when to involve the GP or CAMHS.
Read the article
Couples & relationships8 min readSigns your relationship needs support
Arguing is not the warning sign. Contempt, the pursue-and-withdraw loop and logistics-only conversation are. How to recognise them and when to seek help.
Read the article
How these are written
Four rules we hold ourselves to
Therapy is an unregulated market with a lot of confident writing in it. These are the constraints we work inside, and you are entitled to hold us to them.
- Specific, not motivational
- We would rather tell you what happens in minutes ten to thirty-five of a first session than tell you to be brave. Anything that could be replaced by a poster has been cut.
- No client stories
- Nothing here is drawn from anybody's sessions. There are no case studies, no composites, no testimonials and no quotes from people we have worked with.
- No borrowed numbers
- Where we name a therapeutic model we describe it qualitatively. We do not attach percentages, success rates or study citations to claims we have not personally verified.
- Honest about limits
- Every article says plainly what it cannot do, where private therapy is the wrong answer, and which service to call instead when the answer is urgent.
These articles are general information
Nothing on this page is an assessment, a diagnosis or a treatment recommendation for you. If you are worried about yourself or someone else, speak to your GP or a qualified practitioner rather than acting on an article.
Family Restore Ltd is not a crisis service and cannot provide out-of-hours cover. In an emergency call 999. For urgent NHS mental-health support at any hour, call 111 and choose the mental-health option, or call Samaritans free on 116 123. Every free national service, and what each one is for, is listed on our urgent help page.
Suggest a subject
If there is a question you wish somebody had answered plainly before you booked your first appointment anywhere, tell us and we will consider writing it up. We reply within one working day.
When reading is not enough
An article can name the pattern. It cannot sit in the room with you.
If something here has been sitting with you for a while, a first conversation is a low-cost way to find out whether therapy, couples work or coaching is the right next step — including hearing that it is not, and where else to look.