We believe that individual therapy is the bedrock of mental health change especially for alcohol or drug use and personal issues such as depression, anxiety and self esteem problems. Counseling with your therapist needs to be collaborative where clients sort out thoughts and feelings in order to get a better understanding of who they are. Counseling is completely different from person to person. One client may want more advice or suggestions. Another might want mostly to vent and to be heard. Still others may need to be challenged or confronted. In general, though, most therapists believe that counseling helps us understand thoughts and feelings about ourselves that we have not previously fully recognized. Sigmund Freud referred to this process as making that which is unconscious conscious. We trust that clients know deep down what should be talked about in therapy and that they mostly need help knowing how to access these thoughts and feelings in order to realize what it is they want and need from others and their lives.
Fees are $220-180 per session for most associates (sliding scale fees between $150-180 are possible in only some cases; please contact for more information). Dr. Frank’s fee is $270 with occasional sliding fee slots available.
Our approach is eclectic or integrative, but we use many behavioral and cognitive-behavioral approaches in our work. We are particularly interested in evidenced-based and best practices approaches to treatment and so we continually challenge ourselves as therapists, learn newly refined techniques and approaches and provide each other with peer and collegial consultation regularly. We are humanistic and client centered as well and and have found that it often helps patients to know that their therapist is a regular guy or gal, a human being too, and much can be learned from the relationship of therapy. Many clients come to a therapist’s office because they are struggling in their relationships. Paying attention to how your relationship develops in the office can help you understand how really important social interactions in your life outside of the therapeutic relationship actually work.
We have put together a group of clinicians that we feel offer a wide range of treatment options and so if one of use is not able to provide all of the therapeutic support that you need we can supplement our work with collaboration from one of our colleagues in Jeremy Frank & Associates or with another colleague outside of our office. We are comprised of therapists from several different disciplines, Masters of Family Therapy, Licensed Professional Counselor, National Certified Counselor, Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Psychologist. We will discuss the pros and cons of working with various types of professionals and if we feel you are not getting all that you might benefit from we will discuss that with you so that you can add or make changes to your treatment as you see fit.
As discussed in the Services section here, we like to think of therapists as quarterbacks to your treatment. A more inclusive analogy like “coach” may be better but we believe that our job is to support,coordinate, lead, or direct your treatment but you choose the position you want to play, you choose when and for how long you’ll play and we negotiate together what route you’ll run and we do this collaboratively. Your job is to work, train, practice and play (and have fun playing too.)
We believe in a “stepped level of care” approach for services. What this means is that it is best to “sign up” for more treatment in the beginning and to see how that goes but treatment should be 1) the least drastic, 2) the least intrusive in your life and 3) the least expensive. In other words, we don’t need to whisk you away to rehab, detox or a recovery house. That is often too drastic, intrusive and expensive. We want to see if clients can make changes while living their normal lives because if they can they are more likely to make real meaningful and lasting changes. In fact most people relapse after inpatient treatment and often it is because of the transition from that “level of care” to coming back home and having less support. If you can build your support at home or in your current environment you may be better off than if you go to rehab in the first place.
On the other hand, this stepped level of care approach is helpful to think about the trajectory of treatment. So if someone starts out with individual treatment and only wants to come twice a month and it doesn’t work then they should come weekly. If still, they are feeling depressed, missing work or school, and struggling to control their drinking, then they need to step it up and maybe come weekly or maybe add a medication consult or a group meeting once per week. If still they are struggling maybe it’s time to start going to AA or to consider an intensive outpatient treatment program or inpatient treatment. So, perhaps don’t just fire your therapist but instead ratchet it up a few notches, raise the ante, double down and work a little harder in treatment and on yourself. At the same time, the goal of therapy is to eventually not need a therapist anymore. At this point you will be able to accomplish what you accomplish in therapy on your own, with family friends or a significant other.
It can be helpful to ask us for exactly what you are looking for or wanting to accomplish if you know what that is. However most clients do not know exactly what they want or need, and so meeting for an evaluation or consultation allows us to clarify that. There are no bad questions to ask and please feel free to ask ANYTHING that you would like.