Service Offered

Please Note: Services offered are not suitable for severe or urgent mental health concerns. If you need to talk to someone immediately please call Emergency Services on 111 or Lifeline on 0800 543 354.

 

Gerry Douglas, and associates are referred to as “we” or “us”, or “our”.

Gerry Douglas works professionally as a Counsellor and Psychological Tester offering specialist services as an EMDR Clinician, Neurofeedback Therapist, and Interactive Metronome® Provider.  Gerry works with organisations, individuals, couples, teens, and children. 

When initially consulting with us you may be asked to provide copies of reports from other relevant professionals previously consulted, and/or complete specific questionnaires. You may be asked to keep a specified diary.

If a registered health professional has diagnosed you with a specific medical or mental health condition, or you are currently seeing a counsellor / psychotherapist / psychologist / psychiatrist, it is essential that you inform us of this.

Clearance from an appropriate registered health professional may need to be obtained prior to participating in the services offered.

Prior to, or during the time of consultation,  we may ask that you obtain a diagnosis from an appropriate health professional. Commencement or continuation of service may be dependent on obtaining a diagnosis.

We are willing to liaise with other relevant professionals you may be currently consulting. We encourage a cooperative cross-informed approach where there is the potential for this to work to your benefit.

We may ask that you to complete initial intake questionnaires that can also help with tracking progress. Engaging with us is taken as giving consent for yourself, or for children in your charge, to participate in these assessments.

Counselling progress, neuroplastic change, and the acquisition of related skills, is frequently enhanced by numerous broader interacting contextual domains. Key among them are: breathing, exercise, nutrition, and sleep. The service offered will often include education directed at one or more of these domains. Additionally you may be referred to a relevant professional for more extensive help with these domains prior to, concurrent with, or after engagement with the services we offer.

When our program with a client involves education re the application of breathing technique, diet, nutrition, supplements, or exercise, it remains your responsibility to check such advice with an appropriately qualified registered health professional.

Therapeutic work is informed by several approaches. We may vary from the standard protocols of various therapeutic approaches, in response to the immediate therapeutic dynamics. This includes the standard EMDR protocols.

We will continue working with you if you believe there is benefit, and we agree with this.

 

Confidentiality

All files regarding you will remain confidential. There are three exceptions to this:

• Any legal limitations on confidentiality: Examples are situations where we think you are in danger of harming yourself, other people, animals, or other people’s property
• Supervision Exemption: In the context of regular supervision, which is a requirement of retaining registration with the professional body NZCCA.
• Urgent consultation with another relevant professional. 

Identifying information shared within supervision will be minimal such as gender, approximate age, and key symptomatic description.

 

Private Insurance Funding, & ACC Funding

We do not take direct payment from private insurance companies, or from ACC. Nevertheless, If you have a relevant private insurance policy, or you believe you are eligible for funding from ACC, we suggest you direct your case manager to read our website, including this Terms of Engagement page. If your ensurer chooses to exercise the option of funding you directly, then you may engage our services as a private individual, by booking and paying for your appointments via the Book An Appointment page on this website.  

• You will be provided with periodic professionally written progress reports. We will decide the content of these reports, including the topics covered within the report
• A report draft will be shared with our professional supervisor(s), to ensure quality standard
• There will be a professional fee to cover the cost of time in writing the report. This will vary depending on the time involved. The fee will need to be paid before a copy of the report is made available to you

We suggest you ask your case manager to contact us, to clarify any of the points above, or other relevant matters.

 

Disclaimer & Limitations of Service

Services offered are not suitable for severe or urgent mental health concerns. If you need to talk to someone immediately please call Emergency Services on 111 or Lifeline on 0800 543 354.

We are not a medical or health practitioner service, and therefore we do not offer any formal diagnosis. Any reference to medications made by us is educational in intent and nature. You remain responsible for seeking medical advice before making any changes to any medication you are consuming.

The information on this website, or any links to other websites, is offered as educational material, NOT medical advice. If you require medical advice, please seek the services of a registered medical practitioner.

Even though beneficial changes following counselling, biofeedback, neurofeedback, and synchronised metronome training are supported by published research, results will vary between individual trainees. Therefore individual results cannot be guaranteed.

We will stop our services if we form the opinion that there is insufficient or no progress being made. Under these circumstances we will refer you to your General Practitioner, or another suitable service provider.

 

Your Responsibilities

It is your responsibility to check with your GP or another appropriately registered health professional before acting on any educational information we provide with regard to diet, nutrition, supplements, or physical exercise.

Similarly it is your responsibility to check with an appropriate health professional before deciding to act on any educative material contained in this website or links to other websites.

With respect to Neurotiming Therapy using Interactive Metronome (IM):

• If you are going to use an IM Home Kit supplied by us, and engage in pIR HEG neurofeedback, you understand that online appointments will be weekly for 4-6 weeks duration.
• The IM Home kit is then to be returned. This may well be all the training that is required. 
• It is your responsibility is to complete the requirements of the IM program between appointments. This varies, depending on the starting point indicated by your intake assessment data. Generally speaking you can expect to be practicing IM for anywhere between a few minutes to 30 minutes at a time, 4 times per week, for the length of the training. The time commitment expands gradually as the training progresses.
• If more than 6 weeks training is indicated as beneficial, you will need to purchase an IM Home kit. 
• If you experience pain, or any other debilitating symptom during training, it is your responsibility  to stop the exercise, contact us immediately, and also consult an appropriate health professional.

 

Terms of Payment

Your first payment is made in advance at the time of booking an appointment, using a credit or debit card. Further appointments are usually arranged at the end of a current appointment. The charge will be made to your card on the date and time of your next appointment.

Extra time is charged at $23.00 IncGST per 6 minutes. That is, 1/10 of an hour extra time costs 1/10th of the $230 hourly base rate. Any 6 minute interval started will be charged as a full 6 minutes.

 

Refund Policy

There is no charge if you cancel your appointment up to the day before. If a cancellation is made on the day of the appointment, or there is a failure to attend a booked session, a full fee will apply.