Therapy can be very expensive at times. Consider that if you’re seeing a therapist once a week and paying somewhere between $150 and $250 an hour, that can really add up. Fortunately, there are ways to offset the costs of therapy. First of all, if you have health insurance, it could be a good idea to reach out to your health health insurance provider and ask which therapists would be covered under your plan. Sometimes therapists can be covered in network as well as sometimes your insurance plan may have out of network benefits, which means it will cover part of the therapy for therapists that may not be in your insurance network. Additionally, some therapists offer what’s called a sliding scale, where they will make an assessment of your need based on your income and offer you a rate that you can afford. Additionally, group therapy can be a very economical way of getting therapy and getting help. If you’re on a college campus, go seek out your college counseling services. They’re oftentimes included as part of your tuition.

There’s often a stigma associated with going to see a therapist. You might say to yourself, if I go see a therapist, that means I’m crazy. Or if I go see a therapist, that means I can’t handle my own issues. The truth is that many people seek therapy, even people who aren’t dealing with mental health disorders. Oftentimes therapy can help us become better versions of ourselves by helping us learn skills as well as insights about ourselves. A good therapist will help you find the strength within yourself to deal with the situations that you’re dealing with.

There are three things that you should ask your therapist before starting therapy with them. Number one, their previous experience treating patients like you. It’s really important to know that your therapist knows how to treat a patient, that is dealing with the things that you are dealing with to education and licensure. This is really important to make sure that the therapist that you are seeing is held by a certain ethical and legal code and is educated about that code. And number three, fees. It’s often uncomfortable to talk about money, especially when you meet someone for the first time, but it’s really important to understand how much therapy is going to cost you, especially because therapy can be pretty expensive.

When you’re meeting your therapist for the first time, it can often be difficult to know, is this the right therapist for me? What you’re looking for is what we call fit or patient therapist fit. What that means is that the personality of the therapist fits your needs as a patient. That doesn’t mean the therapist needs to be your best friend, but it does mean that the therapist needs to be able to push you when you need to be pushed and at the same time help you along through your journey. If your first therapist or your first experience with therapy didn’t go exactly the way you wanted, there’s a good chance that it was related to fit and if so, give it another try and see if you can find a therapist that might fit your needs a little bit better. Don’t be afraid to tell your therapist what you need or if you feel the fit isn’t exactly right. It’s your therapy. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Therapists are trained to recognize a good fit with a patient and a therapist, and if they feel that it’s not a good fit, they’ll refer you to someone else. It’s kind of like if you go to see a dentist for a broken bone, that dentist isn’t going to be able to help you, and so they’ll refer you to a doctor that will be able to help.

Individual therapy is where you meet one-on-one with a therapist to talk about your problems. Sessions can typically last between 45 and 60 minutes. Individual therapy is a great way to get personalized therapy tailored towards your needs. You’ll be able to sometimes learn skills or just talk about yourself and learn what makes you you, what makes you tick.

Automatic negative thoughts are thoughts that pop into your head and create a negative evaluation of the world around you or of yourself. Everybody deals with automatic thoughts. The problem is when you’re suffering from anxiety or depression, these automatic thoughts are believed to be true, and then you start evaluating everything with a negative or anxious light. Through CBT, you’ll be able to learn to recognize and identify these automatic negative thoughts as well as challenge those automatic negative thoughts and come up with new, more positive thoughts.

Depression can be difficult and oftentimes may seem like it’s too much to bear. It’s important to remember that you’re not alone. You can have the help of family and friends as well as mental health professionals help guide you through this difficult time. It’s not hopeless. You can get through it. Just make sure that you get the help that you need.

CBT or cognitive behavior therapy is a therapy that was developed by Aaron Beck and focuses on how your thoughts impact your behaviors as well as your emotions. The C or cognitive focuses on your thoughts. This means any sort of thought that might come into your head at any given moment. For example, if I bumped into someone on the street, I may have the thought, oh, that person hates me. When I think about that thought a little more, I may realize, oh, they look like they were in a rush. Maybe they don’t hate me. The behavior refers to any actions or physical feelings you might have as a result of that thought. So for example, if someone bumps into me, I may turn around and look at them funny. Finally, emotions are the result of the thought as well as the behavior. The emotion that comes out of thinking someone hates me can be very defensive or insecure. However, if I’m able to reformulate that thought, I then have a different emotion of more security and confidence. CBT is typically short term and structured. Your CBT therapist will typically assign you homework assignments for you to do over the course of the week so that when you come back to therapy, you can pick up where you left off. Research shows that CBT therapy is one of the most effective forms of therapy and should be considered in a wide variety of settings including anxiety, depression, and ADHD. CBT is a skills-based therapy, so if you feel like I really need to learn more skills to cope with and deal with my anxiety, CBT might be right for you. CBT is typically useful when you have an acute problem or specific issues that you want to deal with. If you are coming into therapy thinking, I just want to talk about myself, CBT might not be right for you. But if you have something that is going on in your head, maybe a bunch of thoughts racing and you want to learn how to control those thoughts, CBT might be the right fit. CBT focuses on automatic negative thoughts, which are automatic thoughts that pop into your head, but that involve a negative evaluation of either yourself or the situation. These thoughts can be very problematic because they can color the way you interpret a situation. Oftentimes, CBT therapists will recommend breathing exercises or mindful meditation to help you get in that state where you can finally evaluate your automatic thoughts and maybe even restructure them and come up with a more helpful and useful thoughts.

Psychodynamic therapy is where you sit with a therapist and talk in a more open-ended free flowing conversation. Typically, therapists will either give you their insights or their perceptions on the dynamics that are going on in the therapy session or that you describe with other people outside the therapy session. Psychodynamic therapy can often be very helpful for patients who don’t really know what’s wrong with them. They just have a general feeling that something might be wrong. Oftentimes this therapy can be open-ended as well as patient-driven. Sometimes you’ll have an active psychodynamic therapist who will talk with you one on one. Other times you’ll have someone who sits there and listens and gives you their feedback occasionally. Whenever you’re doing psychodynamic therapy, the most important thing to consider is fit. If you don’t feel that your therapist is a good fit for you, tell him or her that you think that you would like to see a different therapist and they’ll provide a referral. Psychodynamic therapy can be for everybody. You don’t need to be depressed or anxious to enter psychodynamic therapy and get something out of it. Psychodynamic therapy can help you see all the different aspects about yourself that maybe you couldn’t see on your own. It can help you succeed in a wide variety of realms. Relationship, business, social. Psychodynamic therapy is different than talking to just a friend because your psychodynamic therapist is there to help you. They’re professionally trained to work with you, to try and help you explore in a nonjudgmental way your issues.

Oftentimes there’s a stigma about seeking therapy. People feeling as though if I go to see a therapist, I’m crazy, or I can’t handle my own issues. It’s exactly the opposite. Think about it. If you broke a bone, you wouldn’t think, oh, I have to deal with this on my own. You would go to a doctor. Similarly, if you’re feeling depressed or anxious, it’s important to go seek the help of a mental health professional. Specifically, there’s a stigma against men seeking therapy. Frequently men don’t feel comfortable sharing their emotions, and as a result, don’t feel comfortable seeking out therapy. It may make them feel weak or vulnerable. It’s very important to make sure you take care of yourself just as much as you would if you had broken a bone. If you’re feeling depressed for most of the day, nearly every day, go seek the help of a mental health profession.

Inpatient therapy is round the clock therapy where you’ll get supervision from doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers. Typically, inpatient units offer group therapy and individual therapy to help you learn skills and talk with other people about their experience. Following an inpatient stay, your doctor may suggest an intensive outpatient therapy program or partial hospitalization to make sure that you’re fully ready to go back to your regular life. Intensive outpatient therapy is a daily or semi-daily therapy where you go into a center and you see doctors, therapists, as well as social workers to help you figure out all the supports you need in order to function at the level that you’re used to. Typically, these centers will have group therapy and individual therapy. Intensive outpatient centers can be expensive, however many are covered by insurance, so please be sure to contact your insurance provider. Intensive outpatient therapy is really geared to be short term and helping you get the skills necessary to get yourself back on your feet and into your everyday life.

Group therapy typically consists of between four and 10 patients and between one and two therapists. Group therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of patients, patients suffering from depression, from anxiety, from PTSD. Group therapy can often be very helpful because you get the social support from all the other patients in the group to sort of understand that you’re not alone in this journey. The things you’re experiencing other people are experiencing too. Also, when you’re in group therapy, people can give you advice on, Hey, I dealt with that. Here’s how I dealt with that. Group therapy can often be a less expensive alternative to individual therapy. However, oftentimes patients will see individual therapy as well as group therapy. Group therapy can either be process-based or skills-based. Process-Based group therapy focuses on people sharing their experiences with one another and talking about how they feel about those experiences. Oftentimes it can be very cathartic to hear other people speak about their issues as well as being able to speak about your issues to other people. Skills-Based group therapy is much more focused on learning skills to cope with specific issues such as depression or anxiety. When deciding between a skills-based or process-based group, it’s important to consider where you are in your journey. If you’re just getting started, maybe a skills-based group would be good for you to learn some coping skills for your anxiety or your depression to manage it and then maybe you might consider going to a process-based group. Group therapy is a very popular form of therapy and there may be one closer than you think. Talk to your doctor or therapist about a group therapy that might be the right fit for you in a private practice, clinic, or hospital setting.

In a family, there are many different types of people and personalities that can contribute to fights or other issues. When that happens, it may be wise to seek the consult of a family therapist. A family therapist will help break down the systems of the family, as well as look at each individual person’s contribution to the family unit. By identifying patterns as well as working together to create systems that will help the family thrive as a unit, the therapist can really help a family become a more cohesive and harmonious family. Oftentimes in family therapy, parents can learn parenting skills on how to help control a child that may be a little out of control or overactive. Similarly, in family therapy, the therapist may work with the parents to strengthen their relationship as opposed to the relationship with either one of the parents and the child. Family therapy is very common and you can ask for a referral from your doctor or therapist. Sometimes individual therapy can be helpful in sort of understanding your contribution to a situation, but when it feels like it’s out of control and there’s too many people that are contributing to the problem, it may be time to seek a family therapist. Oftentimes, family therapists will be able to see the whole picture of the family. They’ll be able to look at this is what the child is contributing and looking for in the family relationship. This is what the father’s looking for. This is what the mother’s looking for. This is what any other individual in the relationship is looking for, and this is how they’re contributing to the family dynamic that’s creating problems, arguments, and other issues. Oftentimes people think, oh, I can just tough it out or deal with it myself, but that’s exactly the time when you should go seek a therapist to help you identify the things that you may not be able to identify yourself.