What is Therapy?
Psychotherapy is the use of specific treatment modalities to transform thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior that cause a person distress or interfere with their functioning, relationships, or personal growth. Many folks choose therapy, in addition to self-help or support from loved ones, to reach their goals more quickly and with less emotional suffering.
Therapy is useful to even folks who have lots of friend/family emotional support by helping improve those boundaries in relationships. For example, we've had lots of clients tell us, "I'm glad I have a therapist so that my spouse can be my spouse and not my spouse and my therapist" or "Bringing my child to therapy means my child has a therapist and a mom instead of me trying to be both."
What Modalities do you use?
Our clinicians utilize client-led evidence-based integrative practice. This means that they learn theories, train in modalities, and read research that are effective for their specialty areas of practice. Our clinicians then build a relationship and create a treatment plan with each client that integrates selected theories, modalities, and research that are most likely to be effective for that client.
Just a few of the modalities that we use include: EMDR, TFCBT, Narrative Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Structural Family Therapy, Family Systems Therapy, Life Story Therapy, Play Therapy, Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), and Motivational Interviewing.
What do you Specialize in?
All of our clinicians are both generalists and specialists. This means that we can provide general therapy for routine mental health needs and illnesses (e.g. stress, life transitions, anxiety, depression, mood management, desired behavior/habit change, etc.). Additionally, our therapists have unique specialties that comprise the majority of their training and at least 50% of their caseloads at any given time.
Our main specialties include: adoption-competent practice, post-adoption support, foster care, donor-conception, non-traditional families, co-dependency and healing from relationship harm/abuse (particularly narcissistic abuse), trauma and post-traumatic growth, grief and loss, teens, parent-child relationships, and identity and oppression (special focus on issues of race and LGBTQIA+ issues). We also provide therapy to professionals and organizational/community leaders.
How do we Connect?
Our clinicians are able to provide therapy to any client in-person at our Parkesburg location. We are able to provide therapy to any client who is physically located within a state where we hold a license at the time of each session. At this time, we can provide virtual therapy to clients located in Delaware and Pennsylvania.
How do I pay for my sessions?
All sessions with a therapist are billed per session (55 minutes) at the time of each session. We accept HSA/FSA cards, debit, and credit.
To have a lead clinician (Amanda or Stephanie) assigned as a therapist, the fee is $175 per session. To have an intern clinician assigned as a therapist, the fee is $65 per session.
Please note that we are an out-of-network provider-only so as to maintain the high standards of our program without compromising with unethical insurance requirements and restrictions. This means we cannot bill directly to your insurance. However, clients who have out-of-network (OON) mental health benefits may be able to receive reimbursement from their insurance plan.
Clients with OON mental health benefits on their insurance plan often find that their costs for therapy are the same - or similar to - what they would have paid for a therapist who is in-network with their insurance company.
How do I fit Therapy into my Schedule?
As a general rule, we require that all new clients begin by attending sessions on a weekly basis with no more than 6 days between sessions. We ask that clients attend weekly therapy sessions for at least 4 consecutive weeks before beginning a collaboration process with their therapist to reduce session frequency.
We've created these guidelines from years of experience based on what we've observed to be successful. It's common for clients to "space out" therapy sessions to save money. However, think of doing this as similar to taking a half dose of Tylenol in twice the recommended time. Although Tylenol is excellent at relieving head pain, a specific dose and frequency are needed to experience relief. When relief takes longer because the treatment "dosage" is ineffective, clients ultimately end up spending more.
Our values drive us to work so hard that clients no longer need us because they feel better and happier. We seek to avoid practices that make clients financially or emotionally dependent on our care.