Introduction

Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

This notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from ithe time of your first use of my website (www.psychotherapy-practice.co.uk) or any other initial point of contact with me, through to after our work together has ended.

I, Valia Charalampidou am registered with the Information Controllers Office as the data controller for Valia Charalampidou Counselling & Psychotherapy.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have about this notice and you can contact me by emailing valia.psychotherapy@gmail.com

The notice was last updated September 2024

My postal address is: 1 Quality Court, London WC2A 2HR.

My phone number is: +44 020 4572 5042.

My email address is: valia.psychotherapy@gmail.com.

Why I collect your information:

The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below:

If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information.

If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling or psychotherapy) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you).

I use Squarespace as the content management system for my website. When someone visits my website, Squarespace collects standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, including cookies to help the site work more efficiently.

No user-specific data is collected by me when you visit my website, and this information is processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make any attempt to find out the identities of anyone visiting my website.

If you fill in a form on mywbebiste, that information will be sent to me by email.

I use FreeAgent to manage invoicing and financial records in accordance with HMRC requirements. FreeAgent acts as a data processor on my behalf. This means that while I remain responsible for your personal data, FreeAgent stores and processes certain limited information — such as your name, home address, email address (if included on invoices), and payment details — to enable me to issue invoices, record payments, and maintain accurate financial records for tax and accounting purposes.

How I use your information

When you contact me by any means, including by email, telephone, text message, or my website, with an enquiry about my counselling and psychotherapy services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your Name, Surname, Email address, Phone number and anything else you chose to disclose in your enquiry to me, such as your presenting difficulties or expectations from therapy.

Any information I collect is stored electronically on a password protected smartphone, on a password protected laptop, and on password protected third-party exchange serves, including Google and iCloud in accordance with UK data protection regulation, the GDPR and ICO requirements.

If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within one month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is strictly confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if I am required to do so in line with ethical, contractual or legal obligations, or where I feel there is a risk to your safety or to the safety of others. I will always try to do this in discussion with you and with your consent.

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely and are not shared with any third party.

I may from time to time keep written notes of a session. These are fully anonymised and kept in a password protected electronic file, in a password protected server.

For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than one month. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one month if it is not important. If necessary I will make a note of that correspondence in a password protected electronic file.

Your rights

I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information.

You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information.

You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances.

You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.