General Frequently Asked Questions

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Diversity-affirming psychological care is an approach that recognises, respects, and validates your unique identity, experiences, and perspectives. It tailors therapeutic approaches to ensure your care is respectful, inclusive, and reduced from bias or discrimination, encompassing cultural, sexual, gender, neurodivergent or other identities.

What does affirming psychological care for CALD clients look like?

If you come from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) background, affirming psychological care at Eccentric Minds involves:

• Cultural competence: We integrate your cultural values and communication styles into therapy.
• Respect for cultural beliefs: We validate your worldview, including beliefs about mental health and wellness.
• Addressing systemic issues: We acknowledge experiences of discrimination, racism, dispossession and intergenerational trauma affecting your mental health.

What does affirming psychological care look like for LGBTQ+ clients?

For LGBTQ+ clients, affirming care at Eccentric Minds includes:

• Inclusive language: We use your preferred pronouns and respects your gender and sexuality identity.
• Creating a safe space: We foster an open, non-judgemental environment for expressing your identity authentically.
• Understanding sexual and gender diversity: We are educated on LGBTQ+ community stressors, including gender incongruence, coming out, discrimination and community cultural practices or activities.
• Supporting gender affirmation: We provide support and guidance for navigating emotional, social and practical challenges associated with your gender affirmation journey.

What does affirming psychological care look like for Neurodivergent clients?

If you're neurodivergent, affirming psychological care at Eccentric Minds includes:

• Individualised support: We tailor evidence-based approaches to meet your specific needs.
• Understanding of neurodiversity: We view neurodivergence as a natural brain-style variation, not something to be "fixed."
• Sensory or Learning accommodations: Adjustments to the environment are supported and encouraged to accommodate sensory sensitivities or learning differences.
• Clear communication: While we may go on a tangent every now and then, we aim to use clear, concise communication and will support you to communicate in whichever way suits your brain-style.
• Strengths and differences: We focus on your unique strengths and differences to support your psychological wellbeing. We are able to translate your experiences into language that other health providers or services will also understand if needed.
• Identity-first language: We will respect your use of identity-first language (e.g., "autistic" vs. "person with autism") to describe your neurodiverse identity or experiences.

Regardless of whether you are seeking assessment or therapy, the first session will consist of a discussion about confidentiality, confirming your understanding and consent for services, then a bit of a chat about your experiences, concerns and your recent life circumstances. 

After that we generally dive into your history a bit more, identify your goals for assessment or therapy, talk about approaches or tools that might be helpful for those goals, then create an action plan for future sessions.

Yes. We are a primarily online practice, however have some capacity to offer in-person assessment and therapy in a privately booked clinic room in West Ryde 2114 at Hall Psychology and Coaching. Please be aware that these rooms are not mobility accessible as you would need to confidently walk up approximately 10 stairs to access the rooms

In-person booking are not only dependant on our availability, but also the room availability as shared resource with other clinicians. This means there may be times where it is easier and more accessible to book online telehealth appointments. At the moment we can offer in-person appointments on Thursdays only.

Eccentric Minds is currently operating on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays with availability for regular morning appointments. Business hours in the afternoon are typically allocated for one-off bookings, report writing, responding to enquiries and liaison with other health practitioners.

Currently, Eccentric Minds – Psychology is primarily providing services through video conferencing, and it is important you are aware of the potential benefits and limitations of psychological therapy and assessment provided this way.

Benefits may include:

• Eliminating travel time and costs to see a psychologist
• Flexibility of where you choose to have sessions with your psychologist
• Psychological skills practice in the community with your psychologist
• Access to comforts from home, such as pets, snacks and support people
• Provision of digital psychology resources and on-screen drawing in real-time, reducing paper wastage and printing time

Limitations may include:

• Technical problems affecting audio/visual quality or connection with potential disruption to the session
• Low-likelihood risk of others tapping into the video connection
• Limited privacy if you choose to have a session in a non-private location. Your psychologist may determine it is not appropriate to continue with a session if they assess your confidentiality to be compromised.
• When provision of telehealth services does not enable the appropriate level of risk management required to keep you or others safe from harm. Your psychologist may recommend you engage with a local face-t0-face service that can meet your psychological and safety needs instead.

Your psychologist will take necessary precautions to manage these limitations by:

• Utilising software which has end-to-end encryption and high security standards as directed by Medicare Australia including Zanda and Zoom
• Conducting sessions from a private location 
• Providing guidance for technical issues, or switching to phone call from a private number if the issue is not possible to resolve quickly
• Reminding you to attend your session in a private location without other’s present or nearby
• Providing recommendations for more appropriate local, face-to-face services if necessary

Short answer is yes! As a result of COVID-19 many health services were forced to operate via telehealth for public health reasons and lots of research came out this pandemic response, including:

• Clinical Outcomes: Research indicates that telehealth therapy can achieve similar clinical outcomes as in-person therapy for conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, personality disorders, neurodivergence and much more. Clients often report significant symptom reduction with telehealth sessions just as they do for in-person therapy.
• Accessibility: Telehealth increases access to mental health services, especially for individuals in remote areas, those with small children, those with mobility issues, or those who prefer the convenience of virtual sessions. This also includes increased access to diagnostic assessments, where many interviews and test have now been validated for administration via telehealth.
• Satisfaction: Many clients report high satisfaction rates with telehealth therapy, citing benefits such as reduced travel time, increased comfort during sessions, and flexibility in scheduling.
• Continuity of Care: Telehealth facilitates ongoing therapy, allowing clients to maintain treatment continuity even during disruptions such as pandemics, personal obligations, work schedules, or relocations.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Some studies suggest that telehealth can be a more cost-effective solution for both providers and clients, reducing overhead costs and eliminating travel expenses.

Overall, the evidence supports telehealth therapy as a viable and effective alternative to traditional in-person therapy. If you are looking for more specific research about telehealth therapy, please feel free to conduct your own review of the literature using evidence-based sources through Google Scholar. Here is just one of many papers to get your started :)

Eccentric Minds has a 48-hour, 100% cancellation fee policy, which means that you are welcome to reschedule your appointment with more than 48-hours notice at no penalty. However if you forget to attend or cancel within 48-hours of your appointment, you will need to pay 100% of the session fee.

While nobody wants to actually pay cancellation fees, they are implemented for the following reasons:

• Business Sustainability: Cancellation fees are necessary to cover operational costs, including clinician wages, resources and room rent. This allows the practice to remain viable and continue serving the community.
• Encouraging Attendance: By implementing these fees, more clients are likely to attend their scheduled appointments, thereby minimising wasted preparation time and resources for clinicians and missed opportunities to other clients waiting for appointments.
• Fairness and Consistency: Abiding by this policy ensures that all clients are treated equally, preventing bias in determining the validity of cancellation reasons (even though it is uncomfortable for clinicians to enforce in the moment).
• Transparency and Consent: Clients are informed of these fees upfront, and there are clear methods to cancel without penalty. This transparency helps clients make informed choices about using services.

To reschedule any appointments, please reach out on info@eccentricminds.com.au

As part of providing psychological services, relevant personal information about the current situation and your history will be collected and stored securely. The information will assist in providing an appropriate and thorough service. Information will be stored in a secure location as psychologists are required to keep adult files for a minimum of 7 years, and child files until they are 25 years of age, as outlined in the Psychologist Code of Ethics. You may access the information in your file on request, subject to the exceptions in the National Privacy Principles and NSW Health Records and Information Privacy Act (2002).

Confidentiality and Privacy

All personal information gathered by the psychologist during the provision of psychological service will remain confidential and secure except when: 

1. A court subpoena or other disclosure is required or authorised by law.
2. Failure to disclose the information would place you or another person at risk of harm, including child protection concerns and planning to commit a serious crime (which may include domestic violence related behaviours).
3. You would reasonably expect your personal information to be disclosed to another professional/agency, and disclosure is directly related to the primary purpose for which it was collected, e.g., informing your referring GP or insurer of treatment and progress.
4. Clinical consultation (supervision) with another professional is required to provide better services. If this occurs, identifying details will remain confidential. 
5. Given your prior consent, or that of your legal guardian, to provide a written report to another professional/agency, or discuss your information with another person, e.g., insurance company, workplace, a support person, or support service.

If you choose to engage in services with Eccentric Minds, you will be asked to provide an emergency contact person and their details, you home address, phone number, email address and possibly the address where you will be regularly having telehealth sessions if not at home. 

If your psychologist becomes aware of a risk to someone’s life, health, or well-being, the psychologist is required to report the matter to the appropriate agencies for additional support. Please see the Australian Psychological Society Code of Ethics (2007) for further information.

Typically, unless you are under 18, have a legal guardian or representative, then you will need to provide consent for services and book your own appointment.

Once you have commenced sessions, if you would like to nominate a contact person to assist with coordinating appointments or payments for accessibility reasons, this can be discussed and a separate consent form can be completed to authorise this arrangement.

Just like in-person services, fees are paid at the time of the appointment via PayID or bank transfer (details provided on the consent form).

For Medicare sessions, after the full payment has been received, Eccentric Minds will request that Medicare pay the rebate directly to your bank account as nominated in your MyGov account. This usually takes 24-48 hours to be paid into your account. Alternatively, you can request a copy of the paid receipt to make your own Medicare claim, though this can often take 7-21 days to receive your rebate.

For third-party payers, insurers or NDIS-plan managers, an invoice will be sent to them directly for payment unless otherwise stated. Likewise, the Northern Sydney PHN will be billed directly for sessions under the Access+ program.

Unfortunately no, we cannot offer regular bulk-billing as a payment option currently due to business sustainability and cost of living reasons. You may consider asking your GP about your local Primary Health Network as they often offer a certain number of sessions free if you meet eligibility criteria.