Benefits and Investment

Many factors merit consideration prior to committing to therapy.  Just like with any significant decision, you will be more likely to be satisfied with your choice after taking the time to evaluate the degree to which you will be investing in the counseling process and weighing that against what you hope to achieve.  Everyone’s situation is unique; thus, the factors that are important for you are unique to you.  However, below are factors to consider when engaging in counseling, as well as the benefits of working with me.

Potential Benefits

QUALITY OF LIFE

Ultimately, the overarching goal of counseling is to empower you to reach your fullest potential and assist you with maximizing your satisfaction with your life.  Every other potential benefit of counseling falls under this “quality of life” category. Your emotional, physical, relational, career and financial health are all components that, when cultivated, allow you to live a high quality of life.  What could be more important than that?  Below, I describe just a few ways that counseling has the potential to enhance your quality of life.  Again, everyone is different, so the following may or may not apply to your personal situation.  Furthermore, please note that therapy does not come with a guarantee, since many variables exist that impact outcomes.

EMOTIONAL WELLBEING

Neuroscience suggests that talking about our feelings actually decreases the intensity of them.  It doesn’t matter if your current stressors are “big problem” stressors, or seemingly insignificant – if they negatively impact you in some way, they are worthy of going to counseling to address.  In therapy, you will not only gain assistance with working through your emotions, but also develop skills that you’ll be able to take with you for the rest of your life, long after our therapeutic relationship has ended.  The work you do to transform emotional suffering into emotional empowerment will have a positive ripple effect on other areas of your life as well.   

RELATIONAL HEALTH

Humans are wired to connect to others.  We crave meaningful, long-lasting connection to other living beings.  Without this, we suffer unnecessarily.  Considering the perspective of an unbiased third party promotes opportunities for you to see your relationships in a different light.  Therapy often allows you to uncover relational patterns that have persisted throughout your life and evaluate the impact of these patterns on your relationships. In doing so, you enable yourself to make meaningful changes as needed in order to build long-lasting and meaningful connections with others.  You develop interpersonal skills to accompany and support this process.  When it comes to your quality of life, this work presents itself as one of the most important to accomplish.            

CAREER & FINANCIAL PAYOFFS

Emotional distress can interfere in a professional’s ability to perform to their highest potential in their career, potentially limiting both career satisfaction and earning potential.  Mental health issues also lead individuals to engage in with pricey “escape” behaviors – for example, using alcohol to cope with emotions. Furthermore, untreated mental health concerns could result in hospitalizations with high medical bills.  Unresolved relationship issues could result in expensive divorce and child support cases.   Despite the up front financial costs, at the end of the day, counseling is cheaper than retail therapy.  

PHYSICAL IMPACT

The mind-body connection indicates a powerful interplay in which our mental and emotional states directly impact physical states, and vice-versa. Thus, improved mental wellness actually enhances our physical state as well. After some time spent invested in the therapeutic process, you may find that you have more motivation and energy to participate in physical activity, and feel healthier as well.  

Investment Considerations

ENERGY

Not as widely discussed or considered is the energy expenditure that will accompany your commitment to therapy. However, this factor does play an important role. You’ll engage your thoughts and emotions during sessions and in between sessions when putting into practice what we’ve worked on. In fact, sometimes starting therapy can prompt you to work through uncomfortable feelings or truths that have been laid aside for years. Because of this, sometimes people actually struggle more emotionally for a time after starting treatment than they did before coming to counseling. If you do experience this, it could be a positive sign that you are dealing with and putting to rest challenges that have plagued you for a long time. This will lead to more comprehensive and longer-lasting results. However, it is important to know up front that you will be expending your cognitive and emotional energy in counseling, so that you can make an informed decision about whether and when to engage in treatment.

FINANCIAL COSTS

The last and perhaps most apparent factor on the investment consideration list is, of course, the financial cost. While your financial investment covers the time that we spend in session together, it also covers other components of counseling that allow me to provide the quality of services that you deserve.  Below, I list a few of these in order to give you a more comprehensive understanding of where your dollars are going:

• I am highly trained. I have a Master’s of Arts degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and I continually educate myself in order to stay up to date on best practices and procedures in the field.  I involve myself and my canine co-therapists in training and obedience classes in order to provide meaningful animal-assisted therapy. I want to provide the best quality of care that I can to my clients and I am highly specialized to my niches. Therefore, I do prioritize continuing to invest in my own training so that I can best serve the specific needs of my clients.  

• I specialize in working with specific issues. This allows me to implement targeted interventions and make counseling a more efficient process. My clients don’t have to waste their time explaining polyamory to me, for example. I don't have to expend my energy between sessions haphazardly pursuing knowledge of various unrelated topics. Because I focus on specific issues, my clients are more likely to report improved outcomes.

• I fully engage with my clients. I myself continually work to be in the healthiest emotional and mental place that I can be in order to be fully present for my clients, so I do invest in the services of other professionals as needed, such as supervision, therapy or coaching.  Furthermore, I limit my caseload so that I am available to my clients and am able to be fully engaged in their therapy.

• I spend time outside of session to ensure a high quality of service. This includes reviewing notes from previous sessions and documenting completed sessions, collaborating with other professionals, and gathering relevant and helpful resources.  

• I take care of the details, so that you can relax. Lastly, my fees cover overhead costs, such as office space and utilities. I believe in the importance of creating a calm atmosphere that supports the therapeutic process, so that you can keep your focus on what you came to counseling to accomplish.

The following chart summarizes session rates, so you can have the financial information needed to weigh your decision to start therapy prior to making your initial consult call. Please be aware that I am not in-network with insurance companies.

As you can see, your financial investment primarily covers my time and the financial investments that I make in order to best serve you.  However, please note that our therapeutic relationship not a part of the monetary exchange.  The payment that I receive for myself from my therapeutic relationship with you is a career full of purpose and meaning.  My care for your well-being is given authentically and freely as another human walking this planet alongside of you.  

In summary, your involvement in counseling services entails time, energetic, and financial commitments. Your investment in these areas has the potential to reap valuable quality of life improvements that you might not otherwise see.  For example, you may see improvement in your relationships, your mental and physical health, and even in your career and earning potential.  Ultimately, counseling is an investment in you, and it requires a commitment from yourself to yourself.  Know that you are worth it.