Counseling provides the opportunity to meet with a licensed therapist to assist you in developing the skills necessary to cope with your life’s challenges. Regardless of the origin, causes, or symptoms that are presented, therapy offer you the opportunity to explore your thoughts and feelings while developing a course of action to manage or resolve the presenting issues. The old saying remains true, “what you put into it is what you get out if it.” Counseling is a process without a proven quick-fix. Long-standing issues that you learn to put in perspective will go the distance by providing personal growth and development to a happy, healthier you.
The stigma associated with going to counseling is not a factor when you enter treatment with us. It may be true that you can handle your problems, but it can be a helpful tool to provide support though challenging times. Talking to friends and family may be helpful in the short term or moments of crisis, but talking to a trained professional is your best course of action.
We believe it is a healthy individual who seeks out counseling services. That person has identified areas in their current situation that require outside, professional intervention.
Your treatment and personal goals will be individualized to your unique presentation of symptoms. We will discuss current and past events that today, define who you are as a person. Counseling can be problem specific with a short duration or counseling can be long-term depending on the presenting symptoms. We typically meet once a week for 45 minutes, with treatment dependent on several factors including but not limited to insurance, availability and treatment guidelines for appropriateness of care.
It depends. Counseling can last anywhere from one session to several months or even years. It all depends on what you want and need. Some people come to counseling with a very specific problem they need to solve and might find that one or two sessions is sufficient.
The short-term solution to resolving personal issues with medication is well documented with mixed results. These short-term, medication interventions indeed help but long-term are not effective. Medication, when clinically appropriate, allows counseling to progress without the presentation of symptoms clouding the clinical picture. We will work with your primary care physician or psychiatrist to determine whether medication is right for your situation.
Brooktree is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance. You pay the session fee at the time of service, and on request we will give you a superbill (an itemized receipt with diagnosis and service codes) that you can submit to your insurer for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Reimbursement is not guaranteed, and many plans do not reimburse sessions with an LPC Associate. If you plan to seek reimbursement, questions to ask your insurance company are:
- What are my mental health benefits?
- Do I have out-of-network mental health benefits, and what is my out-of-network deductible?
- How much does my plan reimburse per counseling session with an out-of-network provider?
- Does my plan reimburse sessions with an LPC Associate?
- How do I submit a superbill, and is pre-approval required?
Confidentiality reasons. When you use insurance to pay for counseling, your counseling is required to provide your diagnosis and possibly treatment notes to your insurance company in order to get paid. This undermines the basic premise of counseling and also gives a lot more people access to private health information about you. Also, when a mental health diagnosis is filed on your record, it is considered a pre-existing condition. In the future, this could potentially increase the costs of your insurance or prevent you from getting coverage altogether.
Not everyone is in need of counseling. Some people are in need of life coaching assistance. Coaching has a different emphasis than counseling or consulting. Traditional counseling (otherwise known as “therapy”) tends to put the emphasis on discovering what is wrong and pursuing healing or recovery. Consulting tends to put the emphasis on the knowledge and expertise that the consultant brings to a particular field, and on his or her recommendations to the client. Both of these are very valuable services offered by Brooktree.
Generally, counseling is best for dealing with something that’s wrong: for example, emotional problems such as depression or anxiety, relational problems such as marital discord or a breach of trust, or the ongoing effects of previous traumatic experiences. It is especially focused on healing and recovery. In coaching, while there may be certain things that are blocking a person’s forward progress, the starting place is not with a “presenting problem,” but with a goal or vision for the future, or a desire to improve one’s life. It is focused on being proactive, setting goals and taking action. Counseling requires much more training and education on the part of the provider. Often times, coaches refer individuals to professional counselors when deeper issues need to be addressed.
A standard 50-minute session is $200 with a licensed clinician, or $150 with an LPC Associate working under Dr. Chandler’s supervision. Play therapy sessions are 30–45 minutes. Payment is due at the time of service, and your first consultation is free.
Children are referred for play therapy to resolve their problems (Carmichael; 2006; Schaefer, 1993). Often, children have used up their own problem solving tools, and they misbehave, may act out at home, with friends, and at school (Landreth, 2002). Play therapy allows trained mental health practitioners who specialize in play therapy, to assess and understand children’s play. Further, play therapy is utilized to help children cope with difficult emotions and find solutions to problems (Moustakas, 1997; Reddy, Files-Hall, & Schaefer, 2005). By confronting problems in the clinical Play Therapy setting, children find healthier solutions. Play therapy allows children to change the way they think about, feel toward, and resolve their concerns (Kaugars & Russ, 2001). Even the most troubling problems can be confronted in play therapy and lasting resolutions can be discovered, rehearsed, mastered and adapted into lifelong strategies (Russ, 2004). Please visit www.a4pt.org for more information.