Paediatric Clinical Psychology - information at first appointment

Who we are? 

Dr Kirstin Sharp and Dr Jenny Wright are Clinical Psychologists working in child health at the Borders General Hospital. 

What is a Clinical Psychologist? 

A Clinical Psychologist has been trained to understand how people think, feel and behave. We aim to help children, young people and their families cope with some of the difficulties that can come from a medical condition or treatment. 

Clinical psychologists are not medical doctors and so do not prescribe medicines or do any physical examinations with you. They just listen and talk. 

What we can help with 

Children or young people (and their families) with a health condition or medical symptoms can sometimes have lots of different feelings or worries which can be difficult or distressing. We help children and young people deal with worries, illness and medical treatment. 

What sort of problems we can help with 

We see people who are having all sorts of difficulties. The list below is just some of the problems we can try and help with. 

• coping with treatments you may feel worried or stressed about- e.g. dealing with needles and blood tests, taking tablets, having surgery. 
• helping with any decisions about treatment 
• managing symptoms such as pain, tiredness and other physical symptoms and body changes 
• dealing with the effects of a medical condition on your life such as at school or with friends 
• dealing with your feelings about having a medical condition 
• helping with problems that you might have with other things like eating, sleeping, getting around or using the toilet 

We sometimes find people are not keen to see a psychologist as they worry their symptoms are not believed, or they should be coping. This is not the case at all. We are part of the medical team because we all know it can be difficult sometimes. We always believe symptoms are real. 

At our first appointment we will meet you and anyone you bring to the appointment, such as your Mum or Dad and talk about how things are for you and any difficulties you may feel you need help with. 

The appointment will usually last about one hour. This gives us plenty time to be able to get to know all about you. We will probably ask about your medical condition, symptoms and treatment, as well as a bit about your development, school, what you usually like to do during the day and your feelings to help us get a clearer idea about what things have been like for you. 

We will keep most things you and your family tell us confidential (private). There are sometimes exceptions to this if we feel you, or others, are at risk of harm. 

We will, however, write a letter after we meet, to the person who asked us to see you, and usually your GP, to tell them a bit about what has been difficult and what we will do to try and help. We will discuss what we will share with others. 

During our first meeting we will chat about what we think could help in your situation and make a plan of what to do. We might arrange to meet again for further appointments to provide help, such as ways of coping with treatment or teaching ways of dealing with feelings. We will discuss with you the plan. 

We will probably suggest that it would be useful to see you on your own for a short while at another appointment to allow you to chat about things on your own. We might suggest it would be good for us to hear from other people how you are managing (e.g school). 

During our appointments we may well do different things like drawing, playing, keeping diaries, practicing ways of relaxing or looking at medical equipment. We may ask you to practice some things at home or keep notes, or diaries at home. 

We will agree how many times we think we will meet up for and let you know. We quite often meet people every couple of weeks, perhaps for a few months. For some other things we just see people once or twice. 

Sometimes we do not think we are the best person for the problem and we will discuss this with you and let you know if there is another person that would be better suited to help. 

We are based at the Borders General Hospital in the Child Health Department. We often meet people at the BGH in Outpatients or Ambulatory care, Ward 15. 

We also see people in clinics all around the Borders area as well and we travel to community health centres for regular clinics in Peebles, Innerleithen, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso, Duns, Eyemouth, Coldstream every 2-4 weeks.