What You Can Expect
Our work together will be:
Holistic: I support clients in seeking additional help from other mental health professionals, such as psychiatrists or psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychologist, therapists, primary care physicians, neurologists, neuropsychologists, geriatric care managers, elder law attorneys, and other elder-services professionals.
Strengths-based: We work collaboratively to situate your current challenges within the context of your talents, visions, hopes, capacities, and resilience.
Trauma-focused: I am mindful of past trauma, reactivation of trauma, and current stressors that could lead to future trauma as you face increasing challenges associated with being in relationship with your person/care recipient*.
Attachment-oriented: The type and quality (both historically and presently) of our relationships with people we care for directly impact our feelings toward them, and theirs towards us. Even in the context of mutually loving, supportive, and safe relationships, caregiving can be incredibly difficult. Understanding histories of attachment with caregivers and their people impacts caregiver support in a variety of ways.
*Your person/care recipient refers to the older adult for whom you are providing care. In my practice, I avoid using the phrase "loved one," as this may feel inauthentic to some clients, especially if the quality of the relationship has been poor, or if the caregiver ever experienced trauma or abuse by the older adult.
If you are a caregiver seeking support
You can expect to begin with me on a short-term, consultative model so that I can have enough of an understanding of a your current situation to be able to offer the best logistical and/or emotional support. My approach is thorough, individualized, and specific to the unique relationships between caregivers, their person/care recipient, illness, and hopes for the future. By tending to your own background and history and the type, longevity, and quality of your relationship between you and your person we work together to determine next steps.
Sometimes this can mean our work together is complete a course of short-term intervention (6 sessions) and you have achieved all the insight and tools you need to move forward on your caregiving journey. It might mean that you could use additional support as you build awareness of your strengths and limitations so that you can best take care of yourself while also caring for an older adult. Or your might find that what you really need is to be connected to formal aging service providers, which I can assist with.
No matter what, if our work together concludes after a brief intervention, you can always return anytime. Having a foundational understanding of your circumstances helps tremendously when we haven’t met for a few months and there has been a new change in your person’s level function, diagnosis, change in living environment.
If you are seeking individual planing support/EOL Doula support
I use a similar brief intervention format if you are seeking support for your own planning. Together we consider your previous experiences with attachment, trauma, health and illness, family and friends' health, loss, community, and your priorities for yourself as you age. By reflecting on what information or events have informed your beliefs about getting older, we can start to brainstorm what you envision for yourself as you age. You do NOT need to be sick or close to death to do this work! In EOL Doula work, the focus is on EOL planning, life review, legacy work, ritual, death education, vigil planning, and funeral and disposition planning.
Rates
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I offer all prospective clients a free 20 minute initial consultation to determine if we are a good fit for one another
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Six 50-minute virtual sessions: One time fee of $1,500
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If you choose to stay on for additional sessions, each 50-minute individual session is $200
Additional Information
Medicare Opt-Out Provider: I am a provider who has opted out of Medicare reimbursement. If you have an insurance other than Medicare, I can provide you with a superbill should you seek to request reimbursement from your insurance provider; however, this does not apply to clients with Medicare as their primary insurance.
Good Faith Estimate & No Surprises Act: This Good Faith Estimate shows the costs of services that are reasonably expected for the expected services to address your mental health care needs. If you are billed for $400 more by me than this Good Faith Estimate (GFE), you have the right to dispute the bill. As a clinician, I follow the Good Faith Estimate law (more can be found here) and will ensure that you fully understand that you will not be charged any more than the cost for services rendered.