Frequently asked questions

Therapy

  • Everyone benefits from taking some time to examine what is and isn’t working in their life. Therapy can help you work out what’s holding you back in an area of your life, alter unhelpful behaviour patterns and give you strategies for moving forwards. It can also help children and adults to process trauma, or difficult or anxiety-inducing emotions.

    Therapy can prevent you from reaching crisis point – or can help you build yourself up again if you’ve already been through a crisis.

  • A clinical psychologist is interested in the functioning of the mind. Clinical psychologists will use talking therapy to tackle emotional problems and mental ill health, but will also have expertise in dealing with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions.

  • Yes. We see clients online and in person, in our South London office. You are welcome to choose whichever works best for you.

  • Before beginning a course of therapy, you’ll meet your psychologist for an initial assessment. We’ll discuss the issues that brought you to therapy and what your aims are for the treatment. Where the therapy is for a child, this assessment will be with the parents and the child. This assessment will give you a sense of what therapy involves, and will provide an opportunity to ask any questions you have.

    You are, of course, free to end your therapy whenever you want – though we would recommend working with your psychologist to reach a positive concluding point.

  • This varies greatly from person to person, and will also depend upon why you are seeking therapy and what you bring to your sessions.

    We are happy to offer longer-term work when it is needed. If your health insurance is covering the cost of sessions, then we will request as many sessions as we feel you need, making ongoing requests for more sessions if necessary. Insurance companies tend to be very amenable to such requests.

  • We offer family therapy, which can be attended by children and their parents or carers, or by adult members of a family. Feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help you.

    We do not currently offer couples therapy. For that, we would recommend that you contact specialist relationship-counselling organisations, such as Relate.

  • It is important to us to tailor treatment to our clients’ needs, so we’ll draw up a personal treatment plan for you after meeting for an initial assessment. However, we tend to see most clients on a weekly basis.

  • Yes: everything that is said in a therapy session is treated with the utmost confidence. We do, however, have a statutory responsibility to report anything that may result in significant harm to you or to anyone else.

  • We are not an emergency service and we cannot work with individuals in crisis. If you are actively suicidal or require medical attention for self-harm, we recommend that you contact your GP, or ring 999 in an emergency.

    A list of organisations, such as the Samaritans, that do work with individuals in crisis, is available here.

  • Dr Anindita Sarkar, founder of Affiniti+, has more than two decades’ worth of experience in the NHS, working with children, young people and adults. Any clinical psychologist or therapist employed by Affiniti+ or renting our clinic rooms will be trained to a high standard and registered with their professional bodies.

  • Not at all – we welcome self-referrals.

    However, your health insurance may stipulate that you need a GP referral before you can claim the costs of your treatment.

  • We offer appointments from Monday to Friday. Our earliest available appointment is at 10am, and our latest is at 7pm. All times given are in GMT/BST.

  • Absolutely – we offer online sessions. The only constraint would be whether your time zone is compatible with our working hours.

  • If your health insurance is covering the cost of sessions, then we will request as many sessions as we feel you need, making ongoing requests for more sessions if necessary. Insurance companies tend to be very amenable to such requests.

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Autism and ADHD assessments

  • The format of the assessment itself will be very similar. We interview the child, young person or adult being assessed, as well as their parents and teacher, university tutor or line manager. You can find out more about what’s involved in an autism or ADHD assessment here.

    We pride ourselves on the thoroughness of our assessment, and we go into considerably more detail in our interviews and subsequent report than you would find in an NHS assessment. We also offer our clients the opportunity to read and comment on their report before it is finalised.

    We are usually able to see patients within a few months, whereas NHS waiting lists can stretch to two or more years.

  • Yes: our assessment is as valid as any assessment conducted by the NHS.

  • According to the SEN and Disability Code of Practice (2015), a local authority cannot legally reject a diagnostic report purely because the assessment was conducted privately.

  • We will be in touch with you within a couple of days of your initial contact with us.

    The assessment process itself will take between four and six weeks. Writing up the report, complete with diagnosis and recommendations, will then take a further two to four weeks.

    There may be extensions to this time frame, depending on the complexities of individual cases and the speed with which information can be accessed and appointments can be made.

    We take time and care over each assessment, which may mean that you need to wait two or three months before we are able to start your assessment process.

  • It’s impossible to judge whether or not someone might be autistic or have ADHD – or both – without first meeting them. We offer an initial consultation, which our psychologist will use to determine whether a full neurodevelopmental assessment would be beneficial for you.

    Find out more here about what an initial consultation – and a full assessment – would involve.

  • Often, parents request an assessment because they’ve noticed traits in their child consistent with autism or ADHD, or because their child’s school has mentioned that it might be useful.

    We offer an initial consultation, which our psychologist will use to determine whether a full neurodevelopmental assessment would be beneficial for your child.

    Find out more here about what an initial consultation – and a full assessment – would involve.

  • Most health-insurance providers do cover the cost of autism and ADHD assessments – it will depend on your individual policy.

    An excess may be applied, and you will be expected to pay that yourself.

    If your policy does cover an assessment, you will also need to ask your insurer whether you can refer yourself or your child for an assessment, or whether you will need a referral from a GP. Some insurers will offer access to a private GP to provide this referral.

  • Everything that you tell us during the assessment will be treated as confidential. However, we would recommend sharing your report with your GP and other relevant individuals, in order to access the support you or your child need.

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Organisation work

  • Absolutely. We have experience offering a vast range of different workshops and can tailor the content to your organisation. We actively welcome requests.

  • It very much depends on what your needs are. Some organisations ask us to oversee large change-management projects, while others are looking for a one-off workshop or training session. We are led by your needs, and we don’t impose conditions.

  • Dr Anindita Sarkar, our founder, was the head of clinical services for a large London local authority, where she had clinical oversight of four mental-health teams, leading around 100 members of staff and managing an annual budget of £3.5 million.

    In the private sector, she has supported senior leaders in organisations including Barclays, Shell, PwC and Meta.

  • Although Dr Anindita Sarkar’s background is in public-sector work, she has considerable private-sector experience, in areas including finance, technology, insurance and advertising. Previous clients include Barclays, Shell, BP, PwC, Ogilvy and Meta.

  • Our support for organisations is always bespoke: we tailor our approach to meet your specific needs at any given time. Those needs may include budgetary constraints.

    Feel free to contact us to discuss further how we might help you.

  • Dr Anindita Sarkar, our founder, has experience of senior management and senior leadership. She was the head of clinical services for a large London local authority, where she had clinical oversight of four mental-health teams, leading around 100 members of staff and managing an annual budget of £3.5 million.

  • Absolutely not – we’re happy to work with anyone in your organisation who needs our support.

    For example, we recently worked with the head of safeguarding at a large organisation, providing weekly consultations to guide and support the team through the various safeguarding issues that arose.

    We also offer clinical supervision to staff in different settings.

  • Yes, we offer online workshops on a range of topics. Feel free to drop us a note if you would like to enrol in one of our online courses.

  • Either – or both – depending on what works best for the individual client.

  • We are happy to travel outside London to meet clients. Travel costs would be covered by the client. Depending on the distances involved, we may also require overnight accommodation costs to be covered.

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  • The Learning Hub is the section of our website that brings together the Affiniti+ educational content – including workshops and podcasts – that is designed to support understanding of mental health and psychology in everyday life.

  • The Learning Hub includes content relevant to individuals, families, professionals and organisations. You do not need a diagnosis or prior experience of therapy to access it.

  • Not at all – Learning Hub content is available to everyone, whether or not you have accessed Affiniti+ therapy or assessments.

  • Workshops are psychoeducational, rather than therapeutic. They are designed to share knowledge, tools and perspectives but do not replace individual psychological treatment.

  • Yes: all Learning Hub workshops are designed to be accessible and relevant to everyone.

  • We offer online and in-person workshops. The delivery format will be made clear before booking.

  • Yes: many workshops can be adapted to meet the goals of a specific organisation, team or community group.

  • Some online workshops are recorded and made available after the session. This will always be confirmed in advance.

  • Affiniti+ Podnotes is our VisPod series, providing advice and insider guidance for those starting out on their psychology career.

  • Please do – we welcome feedback and topic suggestions.

Learning Hub

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