Clinical Psychology
At Claire House, we know that the emotional challenges families face when caring for a seriously ill child can be profound. Our dedicated Clinical Psychologist offers essential support to help children, young adults, and their families cope with the emotional and psychological aspects of illness and loss.
Our Clinical Psychologist works alongside our Care Team to provide compassionate, practical support, whether it’s helping a child understand their emotions, guiding siblings through difficult feelings, or offering crisis support when needed. Our full-time Psychologist also works with hospice staff, offering guidance and support in recognising and responding to psychological distress in children and families and managing the emotional toll of their work, to ensure they can continue to provide the best care.
Key Benefits of Psychology
- Providing individual, family and group therapy to help people understand their emotions, thoughts and relationships
- Offering a variety of tools and techniques so children, young adults and families can manage a wide range of issues
- Carrying out specialist psychological assessments to ensure young people and families get the most appropriate psychological support
- Strengthening family bonds and relationships during difficult times
- Offering practical coping techniques and psychological interventions improving overall well-being
- Collaborating with other professionals to support the understanding of the emotional needs of families
How do they do this?
Our Clinical Psychologist creates a safe environment where children, young adults and families can explore what they are feeling and find ways to cope. This is facilitated within evidence-based psychological approaches, such as systemic family therapy, Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and trauma specific therapies.
Different families have different needs at different points in their palliative journey. The Clinical Psychologist can work with a family at any point, from diagnosis of a life-limiting condition to post-bereavement.
What teams do they work with?
Our Clinical Psychologist works closely across the whole Care Team, ensuring that families who require additional psychological support are identified as early as possible.