Terms of Use

The short version.

A Place to Land is a private space where you write, and where Teri reads what you choose to share and writes back to you personally. The Village is a moderated community where you can talk to other parents and carers. In My Room is a separate space for your young person, with their own account, their own writing and their own correspondence with Teri.

None of it is therapy, counselling, a medical service or crisis support.

You pay for a period of time, not for a number of replies. Nothing renews on its own. Every word Teri sends is written and approved by her.

One thing to understand before you buy a place for your young person. What they write in In My Room is theirs. You will not be able to read it. You will see only what they choose to show you. Section 11 explains why, and it is not negotiable.

If you or your young person are in danger right now, this is not the right place to turn. In the UK, call 999. For urgent health advice call NHS 111. Samaritans are on 116 123, day or night. Shout is a text line, text SHOUT to 85258. If you are outside the UK, the list at the end gives the number where you are.

The sections below are the full agreement. Nothing in them should come as a surprise after reading this.

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1. Who we are

This site and these spaces are run by Teri Potter, a sole trader trading as The True Self.

In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean Teri Potter trading as The True Self. "You" and "your" mean the person holding the account.

About Teri. Teri Potter is the founder, and she is the person who reads what is shared and writes back. She has trained in Compassionate Inquiry and is a member of the IPHM. She brings that training, and her own life as a parent, to what she writes.

She is not a therapist, a counsellor, a psychologist or a clinician, and she does not hold herself out as one. What she offers is a considered human reply from someone who has trained to sit alongside people in hard seasons. Section 5 explains what that does and does not include, and we would rather be exact about it than flatter it.

2. What these terms cover

These terms apply to:

• the public website at thetrueself.me (our older address, thetrueself.app, redirects here)
• A Place to Land at placetoland.me, your private space
• The Village, the parents' community inside it
• your account, and the arrangements under which you buy a place for a young person

They do not govern your young person's use of In My Room. That has its own agreement, written for them, which they accept themselves. It is at inmyroom.me and you should read it before you buy them a place. Section 11 explains how the two fit together.

Three other documents form part of this agreement:

• the [Privacy Notice], which explains what happens to what you write
• the [Village Community Standards], the house rules for the community
• the [Cookie Policy]

The [Safeguarding Policy] sits alongside them and explains the circumstances in which something shared may have to be passed on. Please read it. It is not the usual buried appendix; it is the document that tells you where the limits of confidentiality are.

Where these documents overlap, they are meant to say the same thing. If they ever conflict, the Privacy Notice governs anything to do with your information.

3. A word about language

Inside the space we say pause, because that is what it is. A door left ajar, not a service you quit.

In this document you will also see the word cancel, because that is the legal term for the statutory right described in section 9, and using the plain legal word is the only way to be sure you know you have it.

4. The three spaces, in one place

The two Village communities are entirely separate. Parents cannot see the young people's community and young people cannot see the parents'. That is deliberate and it will not change.

5. What this is, and what it is not

5.1 What it is

A private, written space. You write whenever you need to. When you are ready, you share a piece of that writing with Teri. She reads it properly and she writes back to you personally.

You will not be met by a machine. You will not be met by a script. Somebody is there, she has read your words, and she has thought about them before answering.

5.2 What it is not

This is not therapy. It is not counselling, psychotherapy, coaching, a medical or clinical service, a diagnostic service, a parenting course or a treatment programme.

• Nothing here is assessed, diagnosed, treated or clinically monitored.
• No clinical record is kept, no treatment plan is made, no progress is measured.
• Nothing here is a substitute for advice from your GP, CAMHS, a therapist, a counsellor, a social worker, a school or any other professional. If you need that advice, please seek it.
• Nothing here is medical, legal or financial advice.

This is not crisis support. It is not monitored around the clock. Nobody is watching for an emergency. There may be days between you writing something and Teri reading it. If you need help now, use the numbers at the end.

Teri is not in loco parentis and takes no responsibility for your young person's day to day care.

5.3 No promises about outcomes

We will provide these spaces with reasonable care and skill, which is what the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires of us and what we would want to do anyway. We cannot and do not promise any particular result: not that you will feel better, not that your relationship with your young person will change, not that anything at all will be different. Anyone who promises you that should be treated with suspicion.

6. How your reply is written, and where technology sits

You are going to want to know who you are actually talking to, so here it is, plainly.

A person reads every word you share, and a person writes every word you receive. Teri reads your Opening herself. She writes the reply herself. She approves it before it is sent.

She sometimes uses a writing assistant to help her think. When she is working out how to answer something difficult, she may put what you shared into a private writing tool and ask it how it would respond, in the same way another practitioner might talk a case through with a colleague or write three drafts before finding the right one. She then sets that aside and writes to you in her own words. It helps her order her thinking. It does not do the answering.

What that means in practice:

• No reply is ever generated and sent to you automatically. There is no chatbot here, in either space.
• No machine scores, ranks, rates, diagnoses, profiles or assesses you or your writing. The only judgement anyone makes about what you share is Teri's own, and the only one she is obliged to make is the safeguarding judgement in section 12.
• No model is trained on your writing or your voice.
• Elsewhere, technology does two ordinary things: it generates general writing prompts, which are the same for everybody and are not about you, and it turns a voice note into text if you ask it to. Neither produces a reply.
• Everything that reaches you carries human oversight, from a person who has trained for this and who is accountable for it.

The [Privacy Notice] names every supplier involved and says exactly what each of them sees.

7. Who can join, and places

You must be 18 or over and legally able to enter a contract.

Places are limited on purpose. Teri holds a small number of members at any one time so that each gets a real reply rather than a fast one. If the space is full you may be asked to wait. We would rather make you wait than thin out what you came for.

You may hold one account, in your own name, for your own use. Please do not share your sign in details with anyone, including a partner. If two of you want this, take two memberships. The privacy of what you write depends on one person holding the key.

If you live outside the United Kingdom. You are welcome, and the crisis list at the end covers several countries. Please understand two things first. If something you share raises a serious safeguarding concern, Teri's ability to act is much more limited outside the UK, and the [Safeguarding Policy] explains exactly what she can and cannot do. And this agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, as section 21 explains, although you keep the protection of any consumer law that applies where you live and cannot be contracted out of.

8. Membership and payment

8.1 What you are buying

Time and attention, not a quantity. A membership gives you access for a defined period, and Teri's attention on what you share during it. It is not a set number of replies, words or hours.

What is on offer and what each option costs is set out on thetrueself.me/pricing, and the exact price is always shown before you pay. Prices are in pounds sterling and are the prices held in Stripe at the moment you pay. We are not registered for VAT, so no VAT is charged.

8.2 The free sample

If a free introductory period is offered, it is available once per person, it costs nothing, and it does not turn into a paid membership on its own. When it ends, it ends. You will never be charged because you forgot to cancel something free.

8.3 Nothing renews automatically

Your membership does not auto renew. When the period you paid for ends, it ends, and no further payment is taken.

We will email you before it runs out so you are not caught out, and Teri will usually raise it in her own words as the end comes into view, because a good ending is part of the work. That email is a reminder, not an offer.

If we ever introduce an ongoing option that does renew, we will say so unmistakably before you buy it, take your agreement separately, and let you stop it in one step.

8.4 Price changes

A change applies to new purchases only. It never changes the price of a period you have already paid for, because there is no renewal for it to apply to.

8.5 Payment

Payment is taken by Stripe. We never see or hold your card details. If a payment fails we will email you and Stripe will retry a small number of times. Nothing you have written is lost because of a failed payment.

8.6 Codes

Some codes give a discount, some give an introductory period, some give access without payment. Codes are personal to you, cannot be exchanged for money, may expire or run out of uses, and can only be used as described when they were given. Please do not publish a code publicly. We can withdraw a code that is being misused.

9. Ending, pausing, and your right to cancel

9.1 How a membership ends

A membership ends on the last day of the period you paid for. Access ends that day and nothing further is taken. You do not have to do anything, give notice, or explain yourself.

You can also stop before then by telling us. Because nothing renews, stopping early does not prevent a future payment. Sections 9.3 and 9.4 explain when money comes back.

9.2 Pausing

Pausing is not a button you press. If something happens partway through, illness, a crisis, a family emergency, write to Teri at hello@thetrueself.me and ask. She will look at it herself and find something that works, whether that is pausing your time, extending it at no extra cost, or something else. This is handled by a person on purpose, because the reasons people need to stop are the sort of reasons that deserve a person.

Pausing changes nothing about your Room. Everything you have written stays exactly as it is.

9.3 Your statutory right to cancel

Because you are a consumer buying at a distance, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you the right to cancel within 14 days, starting the day after we accept your order. You do not have to give a reason.

How to cancel. Tell us clearly. Email hello@thetrueself.me, or fill in the form at the end. Any clear statement will do. We will acknowledge it the same working day where we can.

Why there is a tick box at checkout, in plain words. The law says a service bought at a distance should not normally begin until the 14 day window has passed. Almost nobody wants that, because beginning is the point. So the law lets you ask us to start straight away, and requires us to ask you clearly rather than assume it. That is what the box is. It is not ticked for you.

• If you tick it, access begins immediately. If you then cancel inside the 14 days, we refund what you paid less a proportionate amount for the part of the period you have already had.
• If you leave it unticked, access begins once the 14 days are up, and cancelling in the meantime costs you nothing.

The resources. Where a resource can be downloaded, you will be asked separately, at the point of downloading, to agree that supply begins straight away and to acknowledge that you lose the right to cancel that item once delivered. Nothing is deemed. You can say no and simply not download it.

Refunds go back to the card you paid with, within 14 days of us receiving your cancellation.

9.4 Refunds outside the 14 days

Outside the cancellation period we do not routinely refund part periods, because the space has been available to you.

That said, we are people, not a machine. If something has gone wrong on our side, if you have been badly served, or if your circumstances have changed suddenly and unfairly, write to us and we will look at it properly. Nothing here takes away your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

One promise that is not discretionary. If you withdraw your consent to us holding what you have written, your membership has to end, because we cannot run it without that consent. That is our position, not your choice, so we refund the unused part of the period, whether or not you are inside the 14 days. Section 11 of the [Privacy Notice] explains withdrawal in full.

9.5 Closing your room

Ending your membership stops your access. Closing your room is a separate act, and it moves everything you have written into a restricted archive rather than deleting it on the spot. Section 13 of the [Privacy Notice] explains exactly what is kept, for how long, who can reach it and what you can still ask us to delete. Please read it before you join rather than at the end.

10. When Teri replies, and when she does not

• Teri reads and replies on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, before six in the evening, UK time.
• Something shared on a Saturday will normally be answered on the Monday.
• She replies in her own words, in her own time. There are no templates, nothing is copied from one member to another, and nothing is sent that she has not written and approved.
• She is a parent too, with her own family and her own dynamics to juggle, and she is a human being who occasionally gets ill or needs to be somewhere else. When she is away, a note appears in the space with the dates, and you will see it before you share anything.
• We cannot promise a reply within a fixed number of hours. This is not a service where somebody is always at the other end. If something is urgent, use the numbers at the end.
• If something exceptional means she cannot reply for an extended period, we will tell you, and extend your time or refund the affected part.

11. Buying a place for your young person

This is the part of these terms that most needs reading properly.

11.1 What you are agreeing to

You may buy a place in In My Room for a young person aged 13 or over for whom you hold parental responsibility. When you do:

• They open their own account, in their own name, with their own password.
• They accept their own agreement, written for them, at inmyroom.me. If they do not accept it, there is no membership.
• You pay. They decide what to write.

11.2 What you will and will not be able to see

You will not be able to read what your young person writes. Not their private writing, not what they share with Teri, not Teri's replies to them, not what they post in their community. There is no parent dashboard and no route to one. This is enforced in the software, not merely promised.

What you will see is confirmation that the membership is active, when it started and when it ends, and anything your young person chooses to show you. They can share a piece of their writing with you in exactly the way they share one with Teri. That is entirely their decision and we will not lean on them to make it.

Your young person is told all of this, clearly, in their own words, before they write anything, including that you can see whether their account is active. They are never monitored without knowing.

11.3 Why it is built this way

Because it would not work otherwise. A young person who believes a parent might read what they write does not write the true thing, and the true thing is the entire point. It is also what the law expects: the ICO's Children's Code requires that a child be told, in terms they understand and with an obvious sign in the product, whenever a parent can see anything about them.

We know this is uncomfortable. It is meant to be a considered discomfort rather than a surprise one. If you are not willing to accept it, please do not buy the place.

11.4 What we will tell you

We will contact you if there is a safeguarding concern, unless doing so would put your young person at greater risk or the concern is about your household. Section 8 of the [Safeguarding Policy] sets out exactly how that decision is made, and it is worth reading before you buy rather than after.

We will also contact you about payment, about the membership ending, and if the account is closed.

11.5 Ending their membership

You can stop paying at any time and the membership ends at the end of the period, exactly as your own does. Please tell your young person yourself. If you ask us to end it immediately, we will, but we will tell them it has ended and that it was not their doing, because vanishing on a young person without explanation is its own small harm.

If your young person asks us to close their account, we will close it, and we will tell you that it has been closed.

12. Safeguarding

Teri holds professional obligations that do not switch off because the writing happens on a screen. In a small number of situations she may have to act on something shared, including passing a concern outside these spaces, without your agreement.

The [Safeguarding Policy] sets out exactly when that might happen, how it would be done, what would be recorded, how long that record is kept, how it differs for a young person, and what changes if you are outside the United Kingdom.

Nothing in your private Room can ever trigger this, because Teri cannot read it. Section 9 of the [Privacy Notice] explains how that is enforced, and is honest about the one infrastructure level exception that exists on any system anywhere.

13. The Village

The Village is a moderated community for parent members. It has its own house rules in the [Village Community Standards], which form part of this agreement.

The essentials:

• Nothing in the Village is private. Every member of the parents' community can read it, and so can Teri. Write accordingly.
• Do not identify anybody's child, including your own, by full name, school, or anything else that would let a stranger find them.
• Do not give medical, legal or crisis advice to another member. Point them to the numbers at the end instead.
• Report anything that worries you. There is a report button on every post and comment, reports are looked at within one working day, and you will be told what happened.
• Teri can hide or remove anything, and can suspend a member from the community while keeping their private space open. She does not read the community in real time.
• The young people's community is separate and you have no access to it.

The Community Standards set out the full list, how moderation decisions are made, and how to appeal one.

14. What you write

14.1 It is yours

You keep every right in what you write. You give us a narrow, non exclusive licence to store it, show it back to you, deliver an Opening to Teri when you share one, display a Village post to the community you posted it in, and hold it in the archive described in section 13 of the [Privacy Notice]. That licence exists only to make the space work and to let us meet our insurance and professional obligations. It does not let us publish, quote, adapt, sell or use your words for anything else.

We will never quote you, publicly or privately, even anonymised, unless you have separately said yes in writing. No case studies, no testimonials, no examples, no marketing.

14.2 Voice notes

You can leave a voice note as well as writing, because sometimes you are in the car with two minutes and no keyboard. You choose whether to keep it as audio, have it turned into text, or both. Teri may also reply by voice note.

A voice note is treated exactly like writing: private to you until you choose to share it, and covered by the same promises. The [Privacy Notice] explains who is involved in turning speech into text.

14.3 Please do not

• Write anything unlawful, or anything that would make us break the law by storing it
• Threaten, harass or abuse anyone, including Teri and other members
• Post anything that encourages or assists suicide or serious self harm
• Identify a child, yours or anybody else's, in the Village
• Try to get into anyone else's account, break the security, scrape the site, or test it without asking
• Use the spaces commercially, or resell access
• Copy, share or republish Teri's replies, the resources, or another member's Village post beyond your own personal use
• Upload anything containing a virus or designed to cause damage
• Attempt to contact another member's young person, or any young person, through this service

The spaces take text and voice notes only. There is no facility for photographs, video or file attachments, and that is deliberate.

Beyond that, write what you need to write. Honesty is the point. Writing about anger, despair, resentment, exhaustion or thoughts that frighten you is not a breach of these terms and will not get your account closed.

15. The resources

Teri may share written resources with you, including The Companion. They are for your own personal use, remain her intellectual property, and access ends when your membership ends. Please do not copy, forward, publish, sell or share them without asking.

16. Our intellectual property

The site, its design, its text, the wordmarks, and the names The True Self™, A Place to Land™, In My Room™ and S.A.F.E. Practice™ belong to Teri Potter and are protected. These marks are used as unregistered trade marks. You may not copy, adapt, republish or reuse any of it commercially without written permission.

17. Availability and changes

We will try to keep the spaces available, but we cannot promise they will never be down: maintenance, faults, or something outside our control such as a supplier failure. We will keep planned maintenance short and flagged in advance where we can.

We may change or improve the spaces over time. We will not remove something you are paying for without telling you first, and the privacy wall in section 4 will not be weakened, ever.

18. If we have to end your membership

We may suspend or end a membership if:

• these terms or the Community Standards are seriously or repeatedly broken
• an account is being used to abuse or threaten someone
• we are required to by law
• what you need is beyond what this space can safely offer, in which case we will say so kindly, point you towards something better suited, and not simply leave you

Except where the law prevents it, we will tell you why, give you a chance to put it right where possible, and refund the unused part of the period. You will be given the chance to export your writing first.

We may also decide to close a space. If we ever do, we will give at least 60 days' notice, refund any period paid beyond the closing date, and make sure you can take everything with you.

19. Our responsibility to you

We are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of us breaking this agreement or failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious it will happen, or if it was clear to both of us when you joined that it might.

We do not limit or exclude our responsibility in any way for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation
• failing to carry out the service with reasonable care and skill, or anything else that cannot lawfully be limited under the Consumer Rights Act 2015
• any breach of your rights under data protection law

We are not responsible for:

• losses that are not foreseeable
• what another member writes. The Village is a community of people we do not control. We moderate it, we remove what breaks the rules, and we take reports seriously, but we do not stand behind what other members say
• what any third party service does, including your bank, Stripe, your email provider or your internet connection
• business losses, since these spaces are supplied for personal use only

Where the law allows a limit, our total responsibility to you for everything arising out of this agreement is capped at the greater of £500 or the total amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

20. Complaints

If you are unhappy, please tell us. We would much rather hear it.

How to complain. Write to hello@thetrueself.me, or use the form at thetrueself.me/complaint. We will acknowledge within 5 working days and reply properly within 21 days. A person will read it, look into it honestly, and tell you what we have decided and why.

Complaints about something in the Village have their own route, in the [Village Community Standards], because they usually need to be dealt with in hours rather than days.

We do not use an alternative dispute resolution scheme. An ADR body is an independent service that looks at consumer disputes without going to court, and we want to be straightforward: we do not take part in one and we do not intend to. That is our choice and we are telling you plainly rather than leaving you to find out.

It takes nothing away from you. We will always look into a complaint properly and fairly, and you keep every legal right you have, including your right to take the matter to court.

Teri's professional membership. Teri is a member of the IPHM, a voluntary membership and accreditation body rather than a regulator. You are free to raise a concern with it at iphm.co.uk. It is not an independent redress scheme and its process asks a complainant to accept the outcome of its panel, so we mention it for completeness rather than as your route to a remedy. Our complaints procedure, and the courts, are your routes to a remedy.

Your information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your information, section 11 of the [Privacy Notice] explains your right to complain to us and then to the Information Commissioner's Office.

21. Odds and ends

This is between you and us. Nobody else can enforce these terms, and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 does not apply.

You cannot transfer your membership. We may transfer this agreement to another business, but only if your rights are not reduced, and we will tell you first.

If a court finds any part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still stands.

Not enforcing something is not giving it up.

Law and courts. These terms, and any dispute arising out of them, are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may bring proceedings in your own courts instead, and if we ever had to bring proceedings against you we would bring them only in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom where you live. If you live outside the United Kingdom, you keep the protection of any mandatory consumer law that applies where you live.

22. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is minor, such as fixing a typo or naming a new supplier, we will change the version and date at the top.

If a change matters to you, such as what is included or your rights, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you do not want the new terms you can stop before then and the old terms apply until your paid period runs out.

We will not apply a changed term retrospectively.

23. Getting in touch

Teri Potter t/a The True Self c/o TWP Accounting, The Old Rectory, Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8DE hello@thetrueself.me

A person will read it and a person will answer it.

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If you need help now

These spaces are not crisis support. If you or someone else is in danger, please use one of these.

United Kingdom

Republic of Ireland

Elsewhere

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Cancellation form

You do not have to use this. Any clear statement that you are cancelling will do. It is here because the Regulations require us to give it to you.

To Teri Potter t/a The True Self, c/o TWP Accounting, The Old Rectory, Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8DE, hello@thetrueself.me:

I hereby give notice that I cancel my contract for the supply of the following service:

Ordered on / received on: ......................................

Name: ......................................

Address: ......................................

Signature (only if you are sending this on paper): ......................................

Date: ......................................

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The True Self · Terms of Use · Version 3.0 · [DATE] Related documents: [Privacy Notice] · [Village Community Standards] · [Safeguarding Policy] · [Cookie Policy] · [In My Room Terms]