What to expect

 1. Establishing the therapeutic relationship

Your and your therapist will spend time getting to know one another. This is a time for building safety and trust, and for establishing boundaries and limits. Without at least the thread of a relationship, nothing much can happen.

2. Contact

Contact involves the ability to be fully present in our interaction. When a child or individual has difficulty staying in contact, the focus of the therapy is to assist in having the ability to sustain contact. Contact is established and evaluated at every session. Resistance, a breaking of contact, is honored and respected as you or your child’s way of coping with painful issues.

3. Contact Functions

The functions of contact include the use of the senses (touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting), awareness and use of the body, the expression of emotions, language and the intellect. Children and individuals who are anxious and worried will restrict and inhibit these vital functions. Developing and enhancing these aspects of the person is an important part of the therapeutic process.

4. Self-Support

This area involves helping you or your child build inner strength through the expression of the self. As the person begins to know and define him/herself through expression of wishes, wants, needs, likes, dislikes, ideas, opinions, he or she gains self-support. Providing the child or individual with experiences of making choices, mastery, and power aid in this process. For children, many games and activities are used to facilitate self-support.

5. Emotional Expression

Self-support is a pre-requisite for the expression of blocked emotions. Emotional expression work involves helping children and individuals understand what feelings are, learning to know one’s own feelings, expressing those blocked feelings that interfere with healthy functioning, and learning skills to express feelings, as anger, in safe, healthy ways. For children, a variety of creative, expressive, projective modalities are used to facilitate this work, as drawings, clay, puppets, sand tray scenes, storytelling, music and creative dramatics.

6. Self-Nurturing Work

The focus of this work is to help the child or individual reframe those negative messages about the self that the child or individual generally introjects at an earlier age. Flushing out those negative parts of self and learning to be nurturing to those parts is the essence of this powerful work.

7. Dealing With Process

Generally inappropriate behaviors melt away through the above work. However, often children and individuals continue to utilize ineffective coping mechanism in unsuccessful attempts to get needs met. You or your child discovers and experiments with new ways of being in the world, and obtains new tools that are more appropriate for getting needs met and obtaining support from the environment.

8. Closing Session

This session is important for making closure to working together for a particular period of time. Some cdhildren need to learn how to let go before moving on. Children can only deal with feelings and issues that are appropriate to their development level. They may reach a plateau and then at a later time evidence new symptoms or behaviors that indicate they are ready for further work.

9. Family Work and Parent Education

This is an essential part of the therapy and may take place periodically. You may be asked to experiment with some new behaviors/tasks to facilitate your child’s therapeutic process outside the confines of the therapist’s office.

Note: The therapeutic process is not necessarily linear. We often go back and forth in order to give the child experiences as the needs for them present themselves. While this therapeutic process is adapted for children, the therapeutic process can be generalized to adults, couples and families.

Adapted from: (Oaklander, V. (1997) The Therapeutic Process with Children and Adolescents. Gestalt Review 1(4) 292-317.)

Fees vary per clinician

Clinician's fees typically range from $ 100- $250 per session and are based on availability, the needs of the individual, and the level of experience/training of the clinician. 

Some of our clinicians accept limited insurance plans however, not all therapists accept insurance.  Some services may be covered in full or in part by your health insurance or employee benefit plan. Our therapists are able to provide you with a superbill receipt for each session for you to submit to your provider. Please contact us for a list of clinicians who accept insurance.

• Aetna

• Anthem Blue Cross

• Victims of Crime

• Flexible Spending/ Health Spending Account

• PPO [We will provide you a superbill to submit to your insurance]

Most of our providers do not bill insurance for a number of reasons. We generally find that involving a third party in your care limits your confidentiality and limits our ability to make appropriate recommendations and takes time away from our service to you. Moreover, the involvement of insurances can impact the therapeutic work and can at times add a layer of challenges that can divert the focus of treatment.

While we will do our best to help navigate the insurance process, it is the client’s responsibility to know the specifics of their individual plan, know the deductibles and the coverage specifics.