drmatthewcott@gmail.com
+353 85 226 2846
+44 7786 694791

Booking Agreement

Last Updated: 02-09-2025

By booking your appointment you confirm that you have read and understood the Booking Agreement shown below. The Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) as listed here form an agreement between myself – Dr Matthew Cott – and you, the Client. They outline how we will work together as well as Privacy and Confidentiality policies etc.

  • To support you to identify and achieve your therapy or coaching goals
  • To manage the conversational process professionally
  • To maintain confidentiality and professional standards
  • To reflect on my own professional practice

  • To read and ensure you understand these T&Cs
  • Important: complete the contact Details form sent to you upon booking your first appointment
  • To attend sessions regularly and at agreed times
  • If sessions are held virtually, to be in a quiet and confidential space during the sessions
  • To provide timely and honest feedback to me

  • Session fees – both in-person and online are €120 (approx. £100) per 50-minute session.
  • You pay the session fee at the time of booking your first appointment and at least 72 hours in advance of each follow-up session.
  • You can pay by card, Apple Pay or Revolut, or by cash (if attending in-person). If you prefer to pay by bank transfer please let me know.
  • My fees are reviewed regularly and I will notify you with a minimum notice of one month before any increase is applied.
  • Please see Cancellation Policy below.

  • Please advise me if you claiming back fees through your private healthcare policy.
  • As a Chartered Psychologist I can provide health insurance receipts. NB: All claims are subject to the T&Cs of your individual policy.

  • When you book an appointment that time is reserved for you.
  • Two days before your appointment I will send you a reminder by text. Please advise me if you would prefer to receive the reminder by email.
  • Cancellation of appointments: At least 48 hours notice is required if cancelling or amending your appointment.
  • If less than 48 hours notice is given you will still be charged for the missed or cancelled session.
  • I will let you know with as much notice as possible if I need to reschedule a session. I will do this by email or phone call depending on your contact preferences.

  • Sessions will be held either in person or virtually depending on our agreement
  • Virtual sessions: will be held on Google Meet.
  • In person sessions: will be held at: 17 Bridge Street, (Front room, 1st Floor), Cork City, T23 K6HT.
  • Sessions will be weekly or at another frequency that we agree.
  • Therapy or coaching will only take place during the pre-arranged sessions.
  • You or I may end this agreement at any point.

Upon booking your first appointment I will ask you to complete a CONTACT DETAILS and preferences form. To contact me about our scheduled sessions please email: drmatthewcott@gmail.com or phone me on +353 85 226 2846 or +44 7786 694791.

Ending therapy is a shared process and it is important that it is planned together. If at any time during our work together you feel like suddenly ending the sessions, I strongly encourage you to attend one more session and to discuss this with me so that we can work through any difficulties you may be experiencing. Ending therapy is your decision to make but it is often beneficial to acknowledge any impulsive reactions and explore the emotional context.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you are going on holiday at any time during our work together. This will enable us to plan our work with a sense of awareness for the potential impact of a break. I will give you as much notice as possible about when I will be away on holiday.

Please keep me informed of any changes to prescribed medication you are taking or any other physical or mental health changes that may affect our work together.

Therapy sessions offer you a confidential space to express your thoughts and feelings. Everything that happens in the sessions remains confidential between us, with the following exceptions:
  • I have an ethical obligation to report sexual, physical, emotional abuse or neglect. I would always seek to discuss this with you first.
  • I may wish to contact your GP or other care providers if you are at risk or there are elements of your care which could be helpful to discuss with your GP. I would endeavour to discuss this with you first.
  • If you tell me about direct risk of harm or abuse to anyone or knowledge of plans of terrorism there are legal requirements for me to report this to the relevant authorities.
  • If you are involved in a court case, the Judge may subpoena your clinical notes. If this happens they ensure notes are relevant to the case in question.
  • I work with a Psychology Supervisor (all Psychologists are professionally required to undertake regular Clinical Supervision to ensure they provide you with the best possible service). I may share details of our sessions with my supervisor in a way that does not reveal your identity and is covered by a confidentiality agreement. Professional supervision is an essential element of good therapeutic practice.
  • I sometimes give examples to explain what I do to peers and prospective clients, or as teaching examples when training other practitioners. These will never contain personal details or information that might identify you and will use the smallest amount of information necessary to make the point.
You are invited to discuss any concerns you may have about your confidentiality. If I become aware during a session that I may need to break confidentiality, I will aim to discuss this with you.

I operate under the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct: https://www.bps.org.uk/guideline/code-ethics-and-conduct and under the Health & Care Professions Council’s (HCPC) Standards of conduct, performance and ethics: https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-of-conduct-performance-and-ethics/

If you have any concerns or complaints about the therapy, please talk to me. If you are not satisfied with my response to your concern and need to take it further, you can use the HCPC’s concerns procedure: https://www.hcpc-uk.org/concerns/raising-concerns/

  • Notes and correspondence pertaining to you and your sessions are held securely for a period of seven years, as is the minimum legal requirement for Psychologists. These may be on paper or electronic format.
  • A number of measures have been adopted to ensure the security of documents and electronic data to comply with legal, financial, data protection and health care regulations.
  • Notes are considered confidential between you and me and are only for the purposes of your psychological therapy - you can request to see the notes at any time.
  • Electronic notes are stored only on encrypted and password-protected devices and are synced (in encrypted format) to cloud storage.
  • Although I make every effort to keep any notes safe and secure, please be aware that notes can be lost, stolen and requested legally, so please mention if there are any issues where you do not wish notes to be recorded.

See also section below on Privacy Notice and how your information is stored under General Data Protection Regulations.

Please note that I am not able to offer a crisis service and cannot offer ’24 hour’ or ‘out of hours’ services or crisis support by email, text or telephone. This means that I am unable to provide you with emotional support or crisis interventions outside of your scheduled sessions. If you do need to speak to someone before a scheduled session, to keep yourself calm and safe, then you agree to use your social support network or contact your GP.

I collect, store and process information about you in order to run my psychology practice and to provide an ethical service to you. I am able to collect this information upon the legal basis of “legitimate interests” for the purpose of healthcare, as per General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

The information includes your contact details, and can also include information about your age, health (mental and physical), sexuality, domestic and financial arrangements and other special category data. Your information is stored anonymously under lock and key and/or password protected. I may use this information to track the progress of our work together or in discussion with my supervisor for reflection and guidance.

You have the following rights to have information deleted, have inaccuracies corrected, the right to access information about you (free of charge) within 1 month, the right not to receive any unsolicited marketing, the right to determine how information about you is processed and the right to complain if you are unhappy about any of the above by contacting the Information Commissioners Office www.ico.org  although I trust that you would discuss this with me in the first instance.

Download Agreement
Providing confidential psychological therapy and coaching for adults in Cork City and online (Ireland & UK).
Dr Matthew Cott is a Chartered member of the Psychological Society of Ireland, the British Psychological Society and registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (UK). He is approved for health insurance claims with the companies shown below.
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I have read and understood the privacy notice and give my consent for information about me to be stored and used in this way.
I have read and understood these terms and conditions and agree to engage in therapy or coaching with Dr Matthew Cott on this basis.