A Clinical Psychologist works with people across the whole lifespan (children and adults) who may be experiencing a range of emotional or mental health difficulties.
The role of a Clinical Psychologist is to help people to identify their hopes and goals for support, assess and understand individual difficulties, and provide tailored options of support, often including one-to-one talking therapies.
Clinical Psychologist’s are not medical doctors and do not prescribe medication.
The NF2 Clinical Psychologist works alongside the NF2 medical team and is available to offer support to children and adults at any stage in their NF2 treatment. Having a condition like NF2 can bring with it unique challenges, and can affect people in lots of ways, such as:
- Struggling with medical appointments or anxiety around procedures
- Feeling anxious, angry, sad, or stressed in relation to your health condition
- Worrying about the future
- Struggling with changes in your appearance or ability
- Experiencing pain or fatigue
The NF2 Clinical Psychologist would work with you to identify what your hopes and goals are for psychology support. Where support is for a child, the psychologist might offer to work directly with the child or young person, or with parents to meet their goals.
If you would like to be referred to the NF2 psychologist, please talk to your NF2 medical team who can make a referral for you.
Appointments can be offered face to face, over the phone, or by video call. Adjustments can be made during your appointment to best suit any communication and comfort needs. It would be helpful if you let us know what you need prior to the appointment so that we can do our best to set things up for you.
During your first appointment the psychologist will support you to talk about your current difficulties and your options for support. The psychologist might suggest using a questionnaire to better understand your current difficulties, and ask you questions such as:
- How are you feeling?
- What are you currently finding challenging?
- How are you coping with this?
- What are you hoping to access support for?
At the end of your first appointment, the psychologist will agree a plan with you: This might include:
- Planning a number of one-one-one talking therapy sessions
- Scheduling a further one-off consultation
- Planning further assessment
- Arranging a joint appointment with a member of the NF2 medical team to plan for a procedure or talk through your concerns
The NF2 psychology service is here to help you if your NF2 is impacting on your mood or wellbeing or the mood or wellbeing of your child. If there are other things you would like to access support with that do not relate to your health, the NF2 psychologist can help by signposting you to other services or referring you to the most appropriate support service for you needs.
The things that you share during your psychology appointments are confidential. This means the psychologist will not share information with others without your permission. However, if there is a concern that you, your child or someone that you know is at risk or unsafe then we have a duty to tell other professionals.
Furthermore, it is often useful to share some information with the NF2 team. This is so the team can best support you with your physical and mental health. You can always ask us to keep certain things confidential.
The psychologist will explain how information is recorded and shared about you in more detail at your first appointment. If you have any worries or concerns about how information is shared, please do tell us about them.
