 Hello, it's Bob Cook here. I'm the founder and clinical director of the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy and if you're watching this video, you're probably interested in coming to counselling and psychotherapy for yourself. You might be coming back after doing some therapy or counselling before on yourself, or in fact, it might be your first time. In fact, both those steps require some courage to actually come to see a counsellor's psychotherapist usually. So I thought I'd just talk to one of the therapists who work for at least two or three days, I think, at the Institute and have been here for about nine, ten years. So they can actually walk you through the steps and perhaps hopefully soothe your anxiety if you've got any about coming to speak to someone. So I'm going to introduce you to Carmen Burke. Hi, Carmen. You work from this very room. I do. This is my room, yes, here. What days do you actually come? I work in private practice here on a Thursday, Friday, and also a Saturday. From nine o'clock to, is it, or what? Yes, I mean working hours are between nine o'clock in the morning and nine o'clock at night. Well, what I will say is that because of the distance I live away from the Institute, I don't tend to start at nine o'clock. And you don't see clients one after the other, so that would be a problem. No, I certainly don't, no. Talking about ethical practice here, Bob, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. And that also means that I'm not also rolling in money either. Well, anyway, for people who have not come to counselling before, so they've had no experience of seeing a counsellor stroke psychotherapist. I know you're a psychotherapist actually, but in many ways we're talking about therapy to conversation. So what would your words be to somebody who's just thinking about coming along, they come to this website, they've looked at, you know, what sort of things we deal with, like self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and they're thinking about making the step to come and talk about their levels of discomfort. What sort of words would you say to someone who's, you know, take to take this first step? Well, as you said in your introduction, I think the majority of us, that is us being the practitioners, will recognize that it does need a certain amount of either fear or bravery to actually make that first phone call and what will happen is, is that when you make the phone call, one of our administrators staff here, that will be either generally Donna or Annette, will take your name and an assessment appointment will then be made. Yeah, about half an hour. That's right, and then you'll do the assessment. Yes, I do the assessments. Do you say take half an hour? Yeah. Yeah, and there's a cost of 30 pounds for that. Yeah. And it's really to help me get an understanding of what the issues are that the person wants to deal with. Yeah. And the type of person that might be suitable for them. So there's a matching process that happens. Yeah. Yeah, because half, I believe, anyway, half the sort of success of therapy, perhaps half, but a large segment of this, is that they actually get home. Yes. Well, they'll say the relationship is all Bob's own, you know. Yes, theoretically. So I then sort of match them up. Yeah. And then, of course, you can go on and see the therapist at a time which will suit you. Most of them work in the evening, some work in, or like you, morning, afternoon and evening. But I think the referral system I like to call it, yeah, where I refer on to the therapist's counsellors are so important. And then, of course, I pass them on to you. And perhaps you can say a little bit about how long you work with people and how long you've been here. Just let it get a flavour of. It's 50 minutes you do. Is it 55 minutes? I do. I do a minimum of what I call a minimum of 50 minutes. So everybody always gets 50 minutes. And there are some circumstances, possibly, where it will go over to about 55 minutes. However, thinking of what we said before, you know, I do need a break in between clients. So And it's good practice to actually keep good time boundaries for for everyone in the room. So When people come to see me Obviously, they'll be introduced into my room. You know, I'll meet them. Find out what they want. And certainly in that first session, it's about a very quick getting to know you. A synopsis. Absolutely. So in the same way that during the referral process, I'll really want to know a little bit about them. So I get a flavour and that's all it can be, obviously. Especially that first 50 minutes. Absolutely. But also, I like to give people a flavour of me. So I'll tell them the fact that I have worked here for nine years. Other things that I do within my practice, such as training and supervision. Yeah, so you'll talk about being at the Stolt site there. Do you know what that means? Yeah, and I'll also give them my contract. I'll talk about it verbally, however, they can then take it away with them. And part of that because there will be some cognitive thinking, because I ask them to write down what they want from therapy. So that's a clear agenda. Absolutely. Great. Great. Yeah. Great. So it sounds a very structured process, in a way. How long do people normally stay, do you think? I generally work on a long-term basis. Nine months. So I look at between nine months and several years. Yeah, I'm the same. And I know sometimes I work with people who might only come for three or four months. Yes. But like you, I'm more longer term. Yes. And do you find that people come with all sorts of issues or is it more say people are depressed and got anxiety or is it people who've got self-esteem issues or more specific issues? I mean in your experience over nine years is it a wide variety of issues? Yeah. Certainly my client base have a very wide base of issues. Because of the work that I do and my interest in attachment and trauma and bereavement, there'll be several clients that I will see regarding those particular reasons for being here in therapy. However, yes, I see all sorts of people regarding all sorts of issues. Yeah, I suppose so. And what about gender? Do you get more men than women or women than men? Or does it become sort of even out over the years? I have always had a practice which on paper would seem to favour having more men as clients than female. I'm very astonished. I don't easily hear that. Do you? Oh, how interesting. With me, you see the other way round. All right. So yes, you see more women than men. And in the referral system, I would say the ratio of women to men is probably two-thirds of women in the third man. In probably the last three or four or five, six years, as the psychotherapy and counselling has become more popular, there's more men coming in. So that's an interesting observation that you have more men. Yes. And within my practice, the same as within your practice, I also supervise. And although I have both male and female supervisees, I have more female supervisees. Oh, that's interesting. So I have more male clients. So that's quite interesting. I'm telling you, another thing, to do this job as a psychotherapist, do you have to, is the training very long? Yes, it's an absolute minimum of four years. However, there are many people that actually will take between six and eight years between training and actually qualifying and being accredited. So it's a rigorous training. It's a very rigorous training. And certainly for all of the accredited courses, it would mean there'd be a number of parallel obligations, and that's just not, meaning you have to write. Yes, it's not just the fact you also have to write essays as well as turn up the training. It also means that you will have placements where you will go in and practice working with clients. It means that you'll have to pay for supervision. It also means you do your own therapy, perhaps. Exactly. And you've been around a long time, and you've been trained for goodness knows how long, you've been here for nine years, so they're getting somebody who's pretty experienced when they come to you. Yes, absolutely. And again, I think as far as my breadth of experience of working with different client groups, I think it means that apart from if we're talking particular specialist areas, maybe psychosexual, for an example, which I'm not qualified to work with that group of people if they require psychosexual therapy, I believe that there have been few clients that, you know, there always are some that I feel that they would be better working with someone else. Of course, I think so. Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. I hope you found this useful, and I hope it's helped you in deciding whether you're not going to, you know, come to our institute. But I hope that it's important, you've given us sort of which flavor there from college. So thank you very much. You're welcome, Bob. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.