How Do I Schedule an Appointment?
You can schedule an initial phone screening by either calling me at (571) 252-9236 or by emailing me at liz@word-play-therapy.com. We will briefly discuss what brings you to counseling, the services I offer, scheduling, and questions you might have. This call will last for approximately 20 minutes. Contact me
What Will the First Session Be Like?
The first session will be quite different from a typical therapy session and is called an intake session. This intake session will last for 90 minutes. We will begin by completing initial paperwork including your rights as a client, important demographic information, and some questionnaires about how you have been feeling. Then we will discuss in detail my policies for working with you and the expectations we will set for our relationship (Informed Consent for Treatment). We will discuss the limits of confidentiality, the ethical code by which I conduct my work (American Psychological Code of Ethics), and policies for our communication.
My goal will be for you to ask as many questions as you need, in order to feel as though you understand our working relationship and what you can expect to happen in therapy. We will take time to sign a Release of Information (ROI) if you have other clinicians you are seeing (e.g., psychiatrist, career counselor) that you would like for me to be in contact with for continuity of your care. We will discuss several aspects of your history so that I can gather a general picture of your life experiences that make you the unique individual that you are. And we will focus in on setting your treatment goals.
Do You Accept Insurance?
I do not accept insurance, but I can be an out-of-network provider for you. I can provide you with receipts for your sessions and you can submit them to your insurance companies for reimbursement. You will want to contact your insurance company to find out what your out-of-network benefits will be for number of sessions per year and rate of reimbursement. We can discuss this when we meet for our intake session.
How Will Therapy Make Me Feel?
Ideally therapy will help you to start feeling better about the events that are happening in your life. I hope it will also help you feel more connected to your friends and loved ones. However, it is important to note that therapy will also bring up difficult feelings as you start to work through the issues you are bravely trying to face. I mention this because clients can feel surprised that they are experiencing negative feelings outside of the therapy room each week.
Therapy helps you become more aware of the stresses and underlying causes of some of your overwhelming feelings. That increased awareness brings with it some pain. But that pain can be worked through by courageously examining your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Looking at these factors can help you decide which areas of your life you would like to change. Working on this together with me as your therapist can help you take the steps you need towards change.
We will do this work at your pace. And once you start building your set of coping skills up, you will start to feel like you can manage this change and maintain it. There might be times when you fall back into old patterns. During these times I will support and encourage you to be gentle with yourself, rather than critical. These set backs are common and to be expected. They are growth experiences too. And because you are not the same person as when you started counseling, you will be able to meet those challenges with increased skill and stamina.
How Will I Know if Therapy is Working For Me?
This is a great question! Therapy will work differently for each individual but there are common signs that often reflect progress in psychological treatment:
- You are feeling better (the symptoms you have been experiencing have reduced in number, or frequency, or intensity)
- You are feeling heard and understood by your therapist (If the therapeutic relationship is strong you feel you can be honest with your therapist and your therapist will be genuine with you. You feel as though you and your therapist are on the same page about what to discuss in counseling sessions and the goals that you have set to work on in treatment.)
- You are observing progress on your treatment goals (When you make realistic and measurable treatment goals in therapy you should evaluate your progress at regular intervals. If you find that you are accomplishing concrete steps towards those goals the therapy is likely working)
How Long Will Therapy Last/Take?
The length of therapy differs for each individual based upon the concerns they bring to counseling. We will discuss your goals for treatment and the timing for when we can evaluate progress towards those goals. You are in control of the length of treatment. We can discuss the important factors involved in continuing in therapy versus terminating (our therapeutic term for ending the therapy relationship). It is important to remember that if you have been dealing with a set of symptoms for an extended period of time (e.g., since childhood) that it might take longer to resolve those symptoms. Part of the reason for this is that as we age our ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving have a way of crystallizing and take more practice to change.
What Makes You Stand Out As a Therapist?
I believe strongly in the power of human beings to solve their own problems. I try to act as a witness to change and growth and to help people to remove any barriers that keep them from being their ideal selves. I am a fellow traveler on my client’s journey of discovery. What sets me apart is that I love to learn as much from my clients as they might learn from a relationship with me. I care deeply about my clients and can observe the ways in which my life is changed because of each of them; they become a part of who I am. Being open to that kind of love for human kind and constant growth for myself as an individual makes me unique.