Making an Appointment

If you would like counselling at Hope Park Counselling Centre, the first stage is to complete a Counselling Referral Form.

The form can be completed online here (Hope Park Counselling Centre Counselling Referral Form), or we can send one to you by post on request.

Prior to completing a Counselling Referral Form, please note that the following must be true: 

• You are not receiving counselling with another service.   
• You are based in the Edinburgh/Lothian area.  
• You are not a staff/student of The University of Edinburgh.  

After we have received your referral form, you will be added to our waiting list and one of our administration team will contact you to invite you for an initial assessment appointment as soon as one becomes available.

The initial assessment appointment will last 50 minutes and you will have the opportunity to:

• Find out about counselling and what we offer at Hope Park Counselling Centre
• Discuss why you are seeking counselling, and hear about what it could offer you
• Talk about the things that are affecting you
• Assess your needs and discuss together whether counselling would be suitable for you
• Discuss any donation you may be able to make for your counselling sessions (including the initial session itself)
• Discuss your availability for a regular weekly appointment

If we agree together that counselling could be helpful, your name will be placed on our waiting list for a regular weekly session, and you will be offered one as soon as we have a suitable counsellor available.

Regular Sessions

Initially you will be offered 6 sessions, after this period you can discuss with your counsellor whether to continue working together. Regular weekly sessions last for 50 minutes and take place in Hope Park Counselling Centre at the same time, on the same day each week. You would be expected to attend these consistently unless you are ill or on holiday. The weekly rhythm of counselling is important to its effectiveness.

If you are in need of immediate assistance, please see our Emergency and Crisis Resource List

To ensure that we support our clients to make informed choices in relation to what they bring, we ask that clients remain aware of any factors that may negatively affect their capacity to engage when attending sessions. An example of this would be being under the influence of substance use, such as drugs or alcohol, when attending sessions. For more information, about how this may impact confidentiality and ethics, please see the page Confidentiality and Ethics  

Waiting List

The length of time you will have to wait for both the initial assessment appointment and regular session depends greatly on your availability. We have a limited number of evening appointments and few online counselling times available. As such, the more flexible you can be with your available times and working in person, the quicker we will be able to find a suitable appointment.

Once we have received your referral form and details, you will receive a confirmation email from us about being added to the waitlist. 

If you have taken up an offer of counselling with another service, we ask that you please let us know as we are not able to offer to see clients who are engaged in counselling elsewhere.    

If you choose to leave our waiting list or are informed that you have been removed from our waiting list as we have been unable to contact you, you are welcome to contact our service and join the waiting list again.  

Please see our Privacy Notice for more information on how we use your data.