top of page

Terms & Conditions

Session agreement, for new clients,

please read and sign.


Before we begin, I want you to know how this space works. What you can expect, what I ask of you, and what we hold together.


The Work

This work is grounded in mutual respect, genuine care, and clear agreements. I work with individuals and couples across a range of modalities, and I bring my whole self to this work. Sessions are offered online via Zoom, in person in Lismore, Northern NSW, and occasionally in Sydney and Melbourne. Some sessions take place out in nature. All first sessions are held online.


If at any point you feel the work is not going in the direction you need, please tell me. I would always rather we recalibrate together than you quietly drift away.


Sessions may include talk-based therapy, breath, movement, ritual, or somatic practices. Always with clear, ongoing consent.

While this work is deeply supportive, it is not a substitute for psychiatric or emergency care. If your needs fall outside my scope, I will do my best to refer you on.


Booking & Payment

All new clients begin with a free 15-minute consult call to ensure we are a good fit and to clarify which offering suits your needs. Sessions are by appointment only and can be booked once intake and consent forms are completed. Payment is due in full at the time of booking unless otherwise agreed. This confirms your session time and supports a grounded start to our work together.


Couples & Polycule Sessions

For couples counselling, please complete the Relationship Counselling Intake Form together. One form now covers both of you. If you are a polycule, please reach out and I will send you an additional intake form to cover everyone in the relationship. This is important to me. I want to hear from each of you, before we are all in the room together.


Most of our work will be held together, in the shared space between you. At times, I may invite individual sessions alongside our relational work, to support deeper access to individual vulnerabilities and parts, and to bring more of each person fully into the room.


Cancellations & Punctuality: Individual Sessions

If you need to reschedule or cancel, please give at least 24 hours notice. Late cancellations or missed sessions may be charged in full unless there is a genuine emergency. I ask that you reach out as soon as you know, so we can find another time together.


Please arrive on time. Sessions will not be extended for late arrivals out of respect for both our time. If you are more than 15 minutes late without prior notice, your session may be considered a no-show and charged in full.


Online Sessions

Online sessions are held via Zoom using your own secure personal meeting link. To support a smooth and contained session, please ensure you have a stable internet connection, a private space free from interruptions, and any technology needed ready before we begin.


Privacy, Recording & Photography

All sessions are private. No photography or recording takes place without your explicit consent.

Some clients choose to record their session for personal reflection. If this is something you would like, please let me know in advance so we can discuss and agree on this together. Recordings are for personal use only and are not to be shared without the consent of all parties present.


Confidentiality

Everything you share with me, in forms, sessions, and written communication, is confidential. What you bring here stays here.

There are a small number of situations where I am legally or ethically required to act:


If I believe there is a serious and imminent risk of harm to yourself or others, I have a duty of care to respond. We would talk about this together wherever possible.


Under Australian law, if I have reasonable belief a child is being abused or at risk, I am required to report this to the relevant authorities.

In rare legal circumstances, records may be requested by a court. I would always seek to protect your privacy within what the law allows.


These situations are rare. But you deserve to know about them.


Supervision

As part of ethical practice, I meet regularly with a clinical supervisor. Your material may be discussed there, but always anonymously. Your name and identifying details are never shared. This is what makes me a better therapist for you.


Professional Boundaries

This is a professional, non-sexual therapeutic relationship. Clear agreements and mutual respect are central to how I work. Any touch-based or somatic practices are offered only within explicitly agreed boundaries and with ongoing, verbal consent. You are always free to decline, pause, or redirect without explanation.


Walk & Talk Therapy

Walk and talk sessions are offered for both therapeutic and educational purposes, and are available after an established therapeutic relationship has formed. This is offered at my discretion and to specifically chosen locations in the Northern Rivers. It is not available as a first session or on request alone.


The outdoor environment is part of the therapeutic experience, not just a backdrop. Nature-based sessions can support regulation, embodiment, and a different quality of presence. Confidentiality applies fully to everything shared during these sessions.


Outdoor settings are less private than indoor spaces, and participants should feel comfortable with that before agreeing to this format. Suitable footwear and weather-appropriate clothing are required. Please advise me of any physical limitations, injuries, or mobility considerations before we meet outdoors.


Travel to the agreed meeting point is your responsibility, and the standard cancellation policy applies to late arrivals. Weather conditions may occasionally require us to move the session indoors or online, and I will give as much notice as possible if this is needed.


Therapeutic Consent & Intimate Content

Some therapeutic and educational work may explore sexuality, intimacy, desire, and the erotic as genuine dimensions of human experience. This is not approached as a clinical problem to be solved, but as real territory for self-knowledge, healing, and becoming more fully oneself in relationship.


The same agreements outlined under Professional Boundaries hold fully here. This relationship remains professional and non-sexual throughout, and any somatic or body-based practices, including work that touches on intimate or sexual themes, are offered only within those agreed boundaries, with consent that is never assumed and never extends to physical contact without explicit prior agreement. Your boundaries and comfort levels will always be honoured.


This kind of work can sometimes bring up strong feelings, unexpected responses, or material that surfaces in the days after a session. This is a natural part of the process. The aftercare and between sessions guidelines in this document apply fully, and I encourage you to reach out if you need support in integrating what arises.


Endings

Endings are part of the work. If you feel ready to close our work together, I ask that where possible we hold one final session to honour what has been, and to bring things to a conscious close. A good ending matters. It is not a formality. It is part of the healing.


Between Sessions & Aftercare

Some sessions may bring strong emotions or energetic shifts. Allow time afterwards for gentle integration. I may offer grounding practices or reflections to support you between sessions.


You are welcome to reach out via email between sessions for brief questions or short check-ins. Please keep contact light and contained. If something needs more attention, more depth, or more time, I ask that you book a session rather than working it through over email. Email is not the right container for the deeper work, and holding that boundary protects both of us. I do not provide crisis support via email or text.


If you find yourself in distress between sessions, please know that support is available. Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, 1800RESPECT for sexual assault and domestic violence support 1800 737 732, or emergency services 000.


Sliding Scale

I hold a small number of sliding scale spaces for clients experiencing financial hardship. These are limited and offered at my discretion. If you feel called to this work but cost is a barrier, please feel welcome to reach out.


Inclusivity & Safety

This space welcomes all genders, bodies, neurotypes, sexualities, cultures, and relationship styles. It is LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC-inclusive, neurodiversity-affirming, and culturally aware. Please let me know what would help you feel safe and supported.


If at any point you feel unseen, unmet, or that this space is not holding you fully, please tell me. I am genuinely willing to hear it. Deepening my understanding and integrating diversity into this work is something I am actively and continuously committed to.


Your consent is ongoing. You can pause, redirect, or end our work at any time. This space belongs to you.

 

Acknowledgement

I have read, understood, and agree to these terms and conditions.

Drawing mode selected. Drawing requires a mouse or touchpad. For keyboard accessibility, select Type or Upload.

What follows is an agreement for couples and polycules, outlining how I work with you specifically.

Please read it in full, and sign at the end.

I created this document so you know how I work, and what I ask of you, and so I can be clear about my why.

I am here in service of the relationship, not only the people within it.

Everything that follows exists to support that.

Working Together

Relationship and individual sessions


When I work with a couple or polycule, I may also see members individually. This document outlines how that works, and what it means for you.


The relationship is who I work with

Even in individual sessions, my client is the relationship, not any one person against another. Individual time exists to deepen what each person brings into the room, not to build a separate alliance with me.


Why both rooms matter

The deepest relational work happens when we are all in the room together. This requires a level of vulnerability and courage. Sometimes that courage is already present. Sometimes it needs to be learned first, in an individual session, before it can be brought back to the group. Individual sessions are used this way, to deepen whatever phase of growth a person is in, so that what returns to the room has more in it.


Individual sessions are invited, not required

Individual sessions support the relational work but are not mandatory for participation. You’re welcome to take part in relationship sessions only. If individual sessions are recommended at a particular point in the work, I’ll say so, and why.


Scheduling

When individual sessions run alongside relationship work, I ask that each person books within 24 to 48 hours of the others. This keeps us close to the same week and the same emotional context, rather than one person processing alone for an extended period before we return to the room together.


No surprises

Sessions, whether individual or together, are never a surprise to the others in the relationship. If one of you books an individual session, everyone knows that it’s happening, even though what’s said inside it stays private. This applies the other way too, I won’t suggest or hold a session with one of you without the others being aware.


If a session is booked as individual, it stays individual. That time is not shared or split between you. When one of you has an individual session, the other is asked to book their own within the 24 to 48 hour window already set out above.


Confidentiality and disclosure

I will not keep secrets regarding the following, if they arise in an individual session:

–    Infidelity, or breaches of agreed relationship agreements

–    Deception, including financial deception or withheld information relevant to a partner’s consent

–    Coercive control or emotional abuse

–    Substance use that is being concealed and affects safety within the relationship

–    Ongoing contact in breach of agreed boundaries


This is assessed clinically, not as an exhaustive checklist, and I will name my reasoning if it is ever in question. If matters of this kind arise individually, they must be brought into the relational work, and I will say so directly. I am not a messenger. I will not carry information on behalf of one person, nor deliver it for them. What I will do is name plainly that something needs to come into the room.


Safety

Disclosure of relational harm, above, is separate from matters of safety, including risk of harm to a person. Those situations are handled under my standard safety and duty of care policy, which takes precedence over everything outlined here.


Notes and records

Individual session notes and relationship session notes are kept separately, and as your practitioner, I hold both.


Pausing the work

I reserve the right to pause sessions if this structure is not being followed, or if I assess that it is no longer serving the relationship. This is not a sanction. It reflects my responsibility to the integrity of the work.


Neutrality

I do not determine who is right. I will not favour one person, or one account of events, over another. My role is to remain equally engaged with everyone, and equally honest with everyone.


Individual growth

Individual work can lead somewhere unexpected. It may surface a need for more closeness, or less. It may reveal something that no longer fits the relationship as it currently stands. I will not direct that work back toward preserving the status quo simply because it is easier for the relational work. Genuine change sometimes asks something of the relationship, and that is permitted to happen here.


Why this matters

This way of working depends on there being a self in the room, as well as a relationship. The stronger and clearer each person is individually, the more there is, in turn, to relate with. This is the foundation of how I work: you, before we.

 

Acknowledgement

I have read and understood this document. Each person taking part in this work signs below.

Drawing mode selected. Drawing requires a mouse or touchpad. For keyboard accessibility, select Type or Upload.

This work honours and celebrates human diversity, welcoming people of all genders, bodies, abilities, cultures, and relationship styles. It is LGBTQIA+ inclusive and affirming.

 


Acknowledgment of Country

I recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia as the traditional owners and custodians of these lands and waters. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.

Gadigal Nation
Sydney NSW

Bundjalung Nation
Northern Rivers NSW
Australia.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • X
  • TikTok

 

Narla Dean Somatic and Relational Therapist © Powered and secured by Wix 

 

bottom of page