Waiting for Work or Union Counselling? Your Options

Many employers pay for an Employee Assistance Programme, or EAP. It usually offers short-term counselling, free to you, often by phone or online as well as face to face. Ask your HR team or check your staff benefits pages to see if you have one.

UK EAPA is the professional body for the EAP industry in the UK. Its guide for counsellors working with EAPs says:

• Sessions are capped. EAPs that offer face-to-face counselling usually cap the number of sessions each eligible person can have each year. The limit can be as many as eight or as few as one or two, but five or six is more typical.
• Extra sessions are the exception. The EAP provider usually has to ask for authorisation, and whether it is agreed varies from contract to contract.
• EAP counselling is short-term. If you need longer-term or specialist help, the counsellor may help you onward, for example to occupational health, your GP or longer-term support.
• Full CBT is usually extra. A full course of CBT is normally only available outside the core EAP, at an extra charge.

Your own EAP may be different, so ask how many sessions you can have and how long the wait is. Source: UK EAPA: Counsellors' Guide to Working with EAPs (PDF).

If you are a Royal College of Nursing member, the RCN offers free, confidential counselling. The RCN says:

• Members get up to 6 telephone sessions of brief therapy. It is phone only, with no face-to-face sessions.
• Because demand is high, the next available appointment is in around 8 to 10 weeks.
• Its counsellors are accredited members of their profession, registered with a professional association such as BACP, UKCP or NCPS.
• It may not suit you if, after assessment, you need longer-term counselling or specialist psychological support. It is also not suitable if you are already seeing a counsellor, psychologist or therapist elsewhere.
• If you miss a session without 24 hours' notice, it counts as one of your six. If you miss two, counselling ends.
• To book, call the RCN on 0345 772 6100 or contact its advice team.

While you wait, the RCN suggests asking your GP or occupational health service whether they can offer support sooner, and checking whether you, your partner or someone in your household has an EAP that covers relatives. Sources: RCN: getting telephone counselling and RCN: counselling service.

• NHS Talking Therapies (England). If you live in England and are 18 or over (16 or 17 in some areas), you can refer yourself without a GP and without a diagnosis. The service will tell you how long you may wait. NHS: find NHS talking therapies.
• Your GP can talk through your options and refer you.
• Occupational health at work, if you have one, may be able to help sooner.
• Low-cost options, such as charities and supervised trainees: see free and low-cost therapy and low-cost counselling with a trainee.
• Health insurance through work may cover therapy: see does health insurance cover therapy?

If you want to start sooner, have more sessions, choose who you see or meet face to face, you can see a private practitioner. No one profession is right for everyone. Many kinds of practitioner can help:

• Counsellors and psychotherapists, on accredited registers such as BACP, UKCP and NCPS.
• Practitioner psychologists, such as clinical and counselling psychologists, on the HCPC register.
• CBT therapists, often accredited by BABCP.
• Arts therapists (art, music and drama) and dance movement psychotherapists, if putting things into words feels hard.
• Family and systemic psychotherapists, if the whole family is affected.
• Occupational therapists, who can help with getting back to work, routines and daily activities.
• Psychiatrists, medical doctors who can assess, diagnose and prescribe.

On Therapist Circle you can search by profession, issue and area, and send a free, private introduction. Each practitioner's registration is checked when they join, and their profile shows the register and number so you can check it yourself. Before you book, ask about fees, session length, cancellation rules and how you will review progress. See how much therapy costs, how many sessions you might need and questions to ask before you book.

If you are partway through EAP or union counselling, it helps to finish or end it clearly before starting with someone new, so you are not seeing two therapists at once.