There are thousands of self-employed counsellors in the UK who provide therapy services online using standard video calling apps, such as Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, and WhatsApp
BRIGHTON, England, June 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Counsellingo.com is a new professional directory of over a thousand of them, recently launched by ‘dot com’ pioneer John Witney.
Witney was the co-founder of the world’s first internet recruitment service, JobServe, back in 1994. In 2000 JobServe was top of the Sunday Times Profit Track 100 league table, and in 2001 JobServe was the first ‘dot com’ business to receive a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.
Availability Matters
According to Witney, who is now a practising counsellor himself, the biggest complaint when looking for a therapist is finding one who is actually available: “Anyone who has ever tried to find a therapist knows that this is an incredibly frustrating part of the process. You invest your time and energy, carefully perusing hundreds of therapists’ profiles and websites, and then you finally muster up the courage to contact two or three that you like the look of, only then to find out that they do not have any availability, or even worse, that they do not reply to your enquiry.”
Counsellingo checks the current availability of every therapist on a weekly basis to ensure that it is always accurate, and that they genuinely do want to receive enquiries. Surprisingly, Counsellingo is the only counselling directory that does this.
Professional Standards
“Another big concern is how do I know that the therapist I have chosen is properly trained and experienced,” Witney continues.
Counselling is not a regulated profession, however, there is an independent organisation that protects the public and is accountable to the UK parliament. The organisation is the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, also known as the PSA.
The PSA has accredited twelve professional registers for the counselling profession. These registers are maintained by professional membership organisations such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS), and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). The organisations and their registers are audited annually by the PSA.
“Every Counsellingo therapist’s profile includes a link to their professional register, so that you can verify their status for yourself, and we manually re-check every therapist’s registration annually. Again, Counsellingo is the only counselling directory that does this.”
Data Privacy
“And finally,” Witney adds, “with online counselling services there are always questions about confidentiality and personal data privacy.”
Platforms such as BetterHelp refer to clients as ‘members’, and they collect, retain, and share, their members’ personal data. Just last year, BetterHelp was fined $7.8m for sharing sensitive personal data.
“Counsellingo, is not a platform or an intermediary. Your relationship with your therapist is confidential and direct. We are not a third-party, and we do not have access to, nor do we collect, any client data.”
Check it out for yourself at: www.counsellingo.com.
About the Founder
John Witney, 59, has been a practising counsellor for over fifteen years. He has a BA (Hons) Degree in Counselling and is a registered member of the BACP. He works with clients at his private practice in Brighton, East Sussex, and online via Zoom.
Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2429578/Counsellingo.jpg
Contact Details
John Witney
Founder & Director, Counsellingo Ltd.
john@witney.com
+44 (0)7770 666666
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