What is psychological support?
We are pleased that we can now offer members a counselling service in collaboration with Rareminds. Living or supporting someone with a pituitary condition can be challenging and our new counselling service can help you with to live with the emotional aspects of a pituitary condition.
We will be working in partnership with experts at Rareminds and counsellors will provide a safe, confidential relationship to work through difficult thoughts or feelings and explore new ways of approaching challenges you may experience at different times.
What we can offer
This service offers members up to 10 sessions of free, confidential counselling service. This will be on Zoom, or on the phone, and is available for family members and individuals aged 18+ impacted by a pituitary condition.
Both evening and daytime appointments are available (weekdays only).
As living with a pituitary condition happens within the context of your everyday life, it’s inevitable that the ‘ups and downs’ impact on each other. You can talk to our counsellors about anything that you are struggling with in living with the emotional impact of a pituitary condition. This might include:
- Impact on your family, social or work relationships
- Anxiety or low mood
- Identity (including feeling different, lonely or isolated)
- Dealing with difficult, unpredictable or increasing symptoms
- The psychological burden of being the ‘pituitary condition expert’
- Coping with unpleasant tests or treatment
- Making difficult choices
- Worries about the future
Please note – Rareinds does not provide a crisis response service. If you have urgent wellbeing concerns or are in crisis please contact your GP, GP out of hours service, NHS 111 or The Samaritans on 116 123 (UK & ROI) in the first instance.
About Rareminds
Rareminds is a UK-based charity supporting the mental health of those with rare diseases and their family members. They provide access to specialist counsellors and psychotherapists trained in working with rare diseases.
They have a unique understanding of the psychosocial impact of rare diseases and work in partnership with patient organisations, rare disease charities and groups to understand the specific challenges faced by their communities.
All of their counsellors/psychotherapists have additional post-Diploma (or equivalent) level experience, and have completed Rareminds internal training programme on ‘Counselling for those impacted by Rare Diseases’.
Meet the counsellors
Dr Stephanie Yin, Psychotherapist (UKCP) and Psychologist (CPsychol)
Stephanie is an accredited psychotherapist and counsellor, and a full clinical member of UKCP. She has worked with children and adults in NHS and community counselling services for several years. Informed by both a lived and professional experience, she is passionate about raising awareness and improving mental health services for the rare disease community.
Stephanie also conducts research and provides training and consultancy on the experience of living with rare and chronic conditions.
Ben Sears, BACP Memb.
Ben has experience of working with individuals across a variety of rare conditions. Prior to becoming a counsellor, Ben worked as a teacher or children with learning needs and behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. He also previously volunteered as a bereavement volunteer and has lived experience of a rare condition in his own immediate family.
How to access
This service is currently closed and will be reopened from April 1st, 2025.
This service is only open to enhanced members of The Pituitary Foundation. You can become a member for £25 a year, and there are concessions available.
You will also need to purchase our enhanced membership package of £15. This brings the total cost to £40 to access the service. With our enhanced membership offering you get access to the 10 counselling sessions and an informative video to help with your wellbeing.
This surcharge ensures that we can still get Gift Aid on our membership and that the support will only be accessed by those affected by pituitary conditions. If finances are prohibitive please contact us to find out how we could support you. Our helplines, support groups and many events remain free to everyone, member or not.
Once you have purchased the enhanced membership then you will be sent information via email on how to arrange an initial consultation with our lead counsellor, Stephanie.
Once you have emailed, you should expect a response within 5 working days, and an initial consultation 7-10 days after this.
We have limited funding for our counselling service so so places are offered on a first come, first serve basis. We are aware that the demand for this service is very high and we aim to manage the demand the best that we can.
We anticipate that demand will be high so it is likely that we will have to close the service soon after the reopen date of April 1st, but we can reopen as places become available. In our experience, demand evens out after an initial influx so hopefully we won’t have to close and reopen too often.