Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a question regarding
services—how they work or which is most applicable—please feel free
to submit it to IAI@innovativealternatives.org. We are not able to do counseling
or mediation via this site for personal issues however.
Your page says that IAI practices
a ‘transformative model’ of mediation. How does IAI’s mediation
model look different from other forms of mediation in practice?
This means that our mediators:
- Keep the parties together
in the same room as much as possible and
‘caucus’ from separate rooms as
little as possible. This cuts time and costs
to clients and ensures that the parties feel complete ownership
of their agreements.
- IAI Mediators never coerce,
suggest or persuade the parties into any item on their agreement. If
parties ask us for resources, such as where to obtain a service, etc.
that they agree to obtain, we can provide those referrals. However,
much mediation in the market today is actually ‘arbitration’ disguised
and mislabeled as ‘mediation’—in which the mediators are telling
the parties or their attorneys what they should do and should not do
in agreements. We at IAI know that we do not go home with you to live
with this agreement. Therefore, the choices should all be yours, not
ours—we provide the structure for the process and you provide the
content. This tactic actually creates less resistance from the parties
and engenders more creativity to find solutions that work for their
particular situation. Mediators who force an agreement may get something
on paper, but it is sure to fall apart later from ‘buyer’s remorse’.
IAI has a 98% agreement rate seldom hears back from clients that the
agreement is not working.
- We never judge our clients’
situation or decide who is right or wrong. It does not matter what
happened in the past except as a road map to the issues that need resolution—what
matters is what our clients wish to do in the present to resolve the
current conflict and what they wish to do differently in the future
to prevent it from happening again. Again, those who masquerade as mediators
but are really arbitrating, will give opinions on who is most at fault
and what offer a client should make to the other party or be willing
to accept from them. That is not mediation! Don’t accept it
as mediation and don’t waste your money for dissatisfaction.
- IAI mediators will only
invite the parties to the dispute to the mediation session. At other
mediation firms attorneys are accustomed to coming to mediations and
performing as active participants. Often the mediators are also attorneys
and defer to them for the negotiations rather than the parties in the
dispute. At IAI, you pay only the mediators rather than mediators
and attorneys for the same time. At IAI,
you create your agreement and
you are satisfied with it or you agree not to agree—it
is that simple. If your attorneys negotiate your agreement for you,
how can you feel ownership of its terms? At IAI, the dynamic of mediation
is not changed because the parties constantly look at their attorneys
for approval before answering a question—openness and honesty is a
key to mediation working. The parties deal only with each other. Your
attorney is your advocate. This is his or her role. You can call them
at any time on break for advice; you can wait to sign the agreement
until they look it over for you, but why pay them to sit there and do
nothing during a mediation session or to take over for you and change
the dynamic to an arbitration session where you feel someone else is
making decisions for you? If you want arbitration, have your attorney
hire an arbitrator, but if you want mediation-- Save time, money
and frustration! Mediate with IAI! We know what mediation really is
and we protect the process!
- What do we need from
you as a client? Simple ‘good faith’—which means that you
come to sessions ready to present all the issues for which you want
resolution and will remain open to hearing and considering all those
presented by the other party or parties as well as the solutions you
both or all bring. If we have this from all parties involved, there
is no conflict that cannot be resolved with mediation!
What do we actually do in a session if we come to mediation?
- First we have a screening/preparation session with the mediators to explain the process so you as a client can decide if this is a process you wish to use. We find out about your conflict and the people who are involved to determine whether it is a good case for mediation. If we all agree it is, the first 3-hour mediation appointment will be scheduled...
- Ground rules and roles of the mediators are reviewed.
- Clients each have uninterrupted time to discuss what the problem is in their personal perception. Mediators summarize and identify issues to be mediated from the problems described.
- Clients each have uninterrupted time to describe the consequences or impact to themselves, relationships and their functioning as a result of this conflict. Mediators again summarize and continue to identify issues for resolution.
- Mediators may categorize multiple issues for resolution within certain categories such as ‘communication’.
- Each issue or category of issues is then ‘brainstormed for potential solutions.’
- Each idea generated is evaluated to determine if it is something both or all parties wish to have on their agreement. Mediators look for agreements that are fair and balanced, concrete and specific, realistic and feasible.
- Once the parties complete the written agreement to resolve the current conflict and ways to prevent further conflict, the agreement is signed by the parties and the mediation is over.
How many 3-hour mediation sessions are needed to resolve disputes?
Depending on the number and nature of the conflicts, several mediation sessions might be necessary. Divorce and custody mediations average approximately 10-12 hours if children are involved. Victim Offender Mediations typically take 1 ½ to 2 hours. Personnel Grievance Mediations take an average of 3-4 hours for 2 parties, but can take more time when multiple parties are involved.
My husband and I are having problems
because I was sexually abused when I was a child and continue to have
problems in our sex life. How do I know if I should seek individual
counseling or if my husband and I should seek couples counseling?
Individual Counseling is often
preferred by those seeking counseling for the first time, and is sometimes
needed and recommended by clinicians before couples can engage productively in family therapy due
to issues brought to their relationship from their childhood or family
of origin—such as child abuse. The focus is obviously on the individual,
their areas of strength as well as areas for growth and reduction of
dysfunctional thoughts, emotions and behaviors. The goal of all psychotherapy
is to improve social occupational and/or academic functioning. Clients
participate in setting personal goals for their own treatment. Both
therapist and client monitor progress toward all these goals.
Frequently Asked Questions About The Difference Between Mediation & Counseling
If you have a question regarding
services—how they work or which is most applicable—please feel free
to submit it to IAI@innovativealternatives.org.
What is the difference between
mediation & counseling?
They are many, the essentials are these:
- Only counseling is applicable
in individual issues, but mediation is most appropriate for crisis stabilization
and making a treatment plan for issues that must be addressed if couples’
or family counseling is necessary—it can provide a roadmap for counseling.
- Mediation is very structured
as a process and counseling is typically an unstructured process.
- Mediation remains very focused
on specific topics, counseling may take many turns or tangents depending
upon the style of the counselor and the number of issues and self awareness
of the client(s).
- Mediation always has more
than one person involved, counseling may be individual.
- Clients in counseling may
get into arguments while the counselor attempts to identify issues.
Mediation does not require the clients to agree, but to answer a series
of questions that helps them identify what does and does not work in
the relationship for either of them and then remains focused on finding
solutions to each issue in turn.
- Progress is made very quickly
in mediation sessions, which are typically 3-4 hours in length. Counseling
may takes weeks or months to get to the same level of progress that
is achieved in 1 or 2 mediation sessions. Clients give counselors an
average of 3 sessions nationally to fix what has taken decades to develop
as problems. It is essential to help clients feel they are making progress
or they quit.
- Mediators remain neutral
(or are supposed to) but counselors are not required or expected to
do so.
- Mediation often costs more
than counseling, because 2 mediators are used in co-mediation models.
However, since more is accomplished in fewer weeks or months, it may
turn out about the same in the end.
- Counseling usually only
involves family members, but mediation may be between any 2 or more
people in conflict—sometimes even people who have never met—as in
victim/offender mediation.
How secure is my confidentiality
in counseling vs. mediation?
Licensed Psychotherapists are bound
by both laws and ethics to protect your confidentiality and at IAI;
counselors will fight to preserve that confidentiality to the extent
that is allowed by law. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of the
State of Texas secures the confidentiality of the content of mediation
sessions unless information discussed in the mediation sessions is discoverable
outside those sessions. That said, there are exceptions to confidentiality
in both processes, but mediation is more secure than psychotherapy.
Judges often make psychotherapists testify and disclose their notes
in civil litigations such as divorce and custody cases. Insurance companies
have a right to your diagnosis and place this information on the Medical
Information Bureau for other insurance companies to share. Mediation
is more secure, but mediators must still disclose any threats of harm
to self or others. Your information will also become public if you should
ever choose to file a complaint or lawsuit against your provider because
the law provides that they must be able to defend themselves with the
details of the treatment they have provided in your case.
Frequently Asked Questions about
Bullying
Adapted from www.backoffbully.com
If you have a question regarding
services—how they work or which is most applicable—please feel free
to submit it to IAI@innovativealternatives.org.
The Dynamics of Bullying
A bully repeatedly uses force, either
physical or non-physical to shame, humiliate and dominate a victim.
Thus a victim is the target for the bully’s force and can become depressed,
hopeless and enraged at the mockery. The bystander is the audience for
the bully-victim drama. It should be noted that these are dialectically
determined roles, not people, and can switch around often very rapidly.
Like an audience for a play, the bully needs applause, since it increases
the humiliation of the victim and makes the bully feel more powerful.
In this way, the bystander enhances the bullying. The bystander
role is an important and often unrecognized part of the problem and
also the solution. The Bully-Bystander gets a vicarious thrill by watching
the bullying. Research has shown that 10-20% of all children in grades
3 through 9 have admitted Bully-Bystander qualities. The less common
Victim-Bystander is often an abused child, who is too frightened to
resist the bullies’ demands for help. Avoidant bystanders are sometimes
teachers who deny the existence of the problem, while ambivalent bystanders
can be recruited to interrupt the power dynamic.
As children get older, the intensity
of the power dynamics and the degree of humiliation, shame and rage
become much greater as groups of children adopt the bully-victim-bystander
roles. Competition for leadership of groups and later on as the child
grows up and becomes sexually mature, gender and ethnic battles and
games, all add fuel to this fire. Thus being humiliated in front of
a girlfriend or being rejected by a boyfriend has very intense emotional
implications, leading often to despair and humiliation and sometimes
suicide, or revenge and retaliation and sometimes homicide, as the recent
spate of school shootings so dramatically illustrates.
Is all fighting bullying?
No, it is not. If two individuals of
equal skill get into a fight, either verbal or physical, where humiliation
and harm is not an important part of the process, then that is fighting,
not bullying. In young children, especially boys in the first grade,
aggressiveness is sometimes a way that psychological growth is facilitated
so that not all fighting and not all bad behavior in children is due
to bullying. Thus fighting or disruptive classroom behavior does not
mean that your child will necessarily become a bully. Remember, the
"goal" of bullying is to draw attention to one’s power by
a process of putting somebody else down. Didactically, it might also
be helpful to further distinguish a violent act from bullying or fighting.
Violence implies the intent to harm, thus bullying is violent, but a
playground fight is not necessarily violent.
Is all fighting and
anger abnormal?
The answer to this is unequivocally
"no". Anger is a normal emotion. It is not a pleasant emotion,
it is not an emotion we enjoy, but it is perfectly normal, as is sadness
or happiness, for that matter. Thus, fighting between children is not
necessarily abnormal; it could be a normal outlet for children’s aggressiveness.
An environment that is entirely too quiet is in many ways also abnormal.
Physical contact is a way children often sublimate their energy, and
anger is a way of communicating a very important mental state. Anger
can be quite constructive, if people are willing to examine themselves,
and the emotion is not too extreme.
Who are the bullies?
In elementary and middle school, typically,
the schoolyard bully is a boy, usually much bigger and physically stronger
than other children, although a little kid can also be a bully if motivated.
In high school, bullying goes underground, is expressed more subtly,
and is perpetrated equally by either gender. It should be remembered
that teachers also bully students and students bully teachers, and that
administrative staff, secretaries, custodians, lunchroom aides and coaches
can all be part of the power dynamics triangle with each sometimes occupying
Bully, Victim, or Bystander roles. It’s only by self-observation and
self-awareness that such troublesome and misery-producing interactions
can be stopped. It’s our opinion that if the total social climate
of the school is not addressed, including not only children, but also
all others working in the school, then any programs to reduce violence
in schools will fail. Girls bully more indirectly by verbal attack,
ostracizing and rumor mongering. In recent years, girl gang leaders
have become much more physical in their desire to dominate, even in
middle and elementary schools.
What are the major
forms of bullying?
Young children tend to bully physically,
but usually the physical component is not serious. If, for example,
a bully seriously injures a victim, he will get blamed and the victim
gets the sympathy. Most physical bullying is repeated poking, slapping,
pushing, groping and shoving, to embarrass and humiliate the victim,
but not cause serious injury. In elementary schools, repeated name calling,
tattling, butting in line, rumors, and leaving someone out of a group
are the most common bullying behaviors. Bullying incidents last only
a few seconds and tend to occur in unstructured settings; hallways,
bathrooms, lunchrooms, playgrounds. As children get more verbal and
more skilled symbolically, then the forms of bullying become more subtle,
although in many ways can be even more destructive. Verbal bullying
involves the public humiliation of a victim by name calling, poking
fun at a physical characteristic or disability such as stuttering, limping,
blinking, or other oddity of movement, speech, or appearance. Verbal
bullying can also involve racial slurs, attacks on parents, "your
mother is a . . . .", or mean comments about styles of dress, hygiene,
or other "styles" of dressing or acting. There is nothing
more miserable than a young teenage girl crying in her bedroom because
she has been excluded from a clique by her so-called friends, or the
child who becomes anorexic and bulimic because of fears of exclusion
from the group of thin popular girls who are the model of attractiveness
to boys. Ostracism, excommunication and blackballing are all ways that
adults humiliate and bully each other and are unfortunately institutionalized
in many of our communities. We perhaps do not need to make the obvious
point that children are not born bullies, but learn the pattern. Who
they learn from includes parents, teachers, media and many other social
influences.
Are bullies mentally
ill?
Coercive power dynamics, or bullying
tendencies, can be present in many different forms of mental illness,
so bullying is not a diagnosis as such, anymore than a headache is,
but instead is an expression of a dysfunctional mental state. There
is no treatment for bullying, but if it continues into adult life, and
the individual continues to humiliate and mock others, all sorts of
interpersonal problems will result that might lead them into psychiatric
care, or even prison.
Children who kill themselves or others
often may have mental illness with a predisposition to loss of impulse
control, but the straw that breaks the camel’s back frequently is
to be the object of significant bullying and feeling of being excluded
or rejected by the group to which the child by nature and right belongs.
There is nothing more devastating to the human mind than being shamed
and mocked by others in front of a peer group and there is no other
assault that can produce homicidal or suicidal rage as easily as shaming
and mockery, since being mocked is much more enraging than serious physical
injury.
How
do children learn to bully?
Children are not born to bully. Modern
psychological theory suggests that human beings are not born with instincts,
unlike animals, but loss of control over impulses comes mainly from
responses learned during upbringing counterpoised with certain genetic
pre-dispositions. Parents that express anger physically will likely
produce children who tend to express anger physically. Children from
homes where there is domestic violence tend to over or under-estimate
violence, thus very much affecting their later relationships with others
and their own children. Unfortunately, significant adults are often
inadvertently a bad example to our children; we frequently ostracize
those whose customs and patterns we do not like. This form of institutionalized
bullying conveys the idea to children that it is alright to establish
a hierarchy of "good people" and "less good outsiders"
and to humiliate others. Yes, unfortunately, children learn to bully,
but they can also unlearn bullying. It all depends on us, the significant
adults.
About one percent of all bullies have
a serious aggressive nature, in that they enjoy the pain of others.
Such children tend to be rather unfeeling when they bully and are not
anxious, nor is their self-esteem low. Such children often have serious
problems with criminal behavior later, and can become quite abusive.
Obviously, most bullies do not necessarily grow up to commit crimes
or abuse other people, since we all have been bullies, victims, and
bystanders!
Are children who
complain about bullying just whining and don’t they ask for it anyway?
There are a variety of types of bullies
and victims. The bully-victim is a child who tends to provoke trouble
and then begins to feel very sorry for themselves when they are attacked.
Such provocative children can become despairing very quickly, especially
if their peers and teachers and those in charge do not pay attention
to the extent of the humiliation. Sometimes people just don’t pay
attention to it because it isn’t very physically serious. There probably
never was a statement less true than, "Sticks and stones will break
my bones, but words will never hurt me." Girl victims sometimes
in high school develop a pattern of dating that often paradoxically
attaches them to bullying boys. They sometimes feel as though they have
to rescue their macho bullying boyfriends, who are seen as "a really
good boy underneath". Sometimes, children may even become martyrs,
as if it is a greater cause to support the boy against all who do not
like or understand him. These complex relationships are part of forms
of lovesickness or crush. Whether or not children "ask for it"
in the sense of acting to encourage it makes no more sense as a justification
for bullying than it does to say that because a victim of sexual harassment,
including rape, is sexually aroused or even seductive, that they asked
for it.
What makes a child
a target for bullying?
The key behavioral ingredient for being
a victim is SUBMISSIVENESS. A bully quickly picks small, shy, frail,
or whiny children who are loners. A bully needs to feel in control and
requires that the victim provide the bystanders a show of shame or humiliation.
Victims are made to feel like fools and often try to submit to the bully
in an attempt to stop the bullying. The net effect is that the victim’s
submission fuels the bully and increases the entertainment for the bystanders.
What is the harm
in being a bystander?
Many parents teach their children to
"not get involved", to "stay out of it", "to
mind your own business." When a child becomes an audience to bullying,
a process of being part of the "Triangle of Power Dynamics"
begins. Watching someone squeal in shame as a bully humiliates can create
a thrill in the bystander, who becomes vicariously identified with the
bully, i.e., a bully-bystander. Eventually, this child might identify
with the bully and passively feel empowered by the negative actions
of the bully, being ensnared into the pathological power play without
even realizing it.
The bystander may also identify with
the victim and become afraid of the bully or support the bully so they
do not become a victim (victim-bystander). The practiced bully will
always be on the look out for new targets, and the victim-bystander
is an excellent recruit. Bystanders can also deny any bullying is going
on and become avoidant-bystanders. Many adults fill this role. Bystanders
may also be confused and not know what to do. This ambivalent-bystander
is distracted because they are trying to figure out what part to play
in the unfolding destructive power dynamic. This is the group of potential
achievers who will not achieve potential because they are distracted
by the ongoing power plays.
What can be done
to stop bullying?
The first step is developing an awareness
of the bully-victim-bystander power dynamic and how it is being played
out. It does little good to label any one child as the one who needs
help or discipline. Bullying is a complex social dynamic that requires
a combination of large group interventions that target improving the
school and home social climate by having a zero tolerance for the bully-victim-bystander
behaviors. Interventions need to target the school climate because the
problem is caused by children who are not mentally ill and provide ways
to encourage positive alternatives to negative power struggles. Bullying
needs to be exposed as destructive behavior rather than glorified, modeled,
and ignored by adults. Just like tobacco or AIDS, bullying is a health
and educational epidemic that threatens the minds and education of our
children.
Children need to learn how to cope
with bullies. Simply bullying back will not work. Parents often advise
their children to fight back against the bully. Again, victims are often
no match for the bullies. Productive responses to bullies are based
on teaching children verbal and mental techniques that lead to assertive,
not provocative responses to bullying. The child needs to learn how
to use assertive stances, language, postures, and some verbal and physical
escapes from bullying.
Frequently Asked Questions about
Peer Mediation
If you have a question regarding
services—how they work or which is most applicable—please feel free
to submit it to IAI@innovativealternatives.org.
What is Peer Mediation?
Peer mediation is a form of conflict
resolution in schools. It is a process whereby students in conflict
are guided by another student - their equal or 'peer' - through a series of steps so that they can find
their own solution. Peer mediation works because it empowers young people
to resolve their own disputes.
How does it work?
Students are often referred to mediation
by teachers and Assistant Principals or other school personnel. Students
can also self refer themselves and others for mediation.
For example, when mediators come across
any conflict in the playground they will ask the students involved if
they would like to ‘go to mediation’ to settle the dispute. They
let the school counselor know of the need for mediation. He/she then
schedules the mediators who will then go through the mediation process
with disputants in a private location with adult supervision nearby, but unable to hear the content of the mediation in most cases (unless an adult program coordinator feels they should co-mediate with a student mediator because a particular student or situation has a higher risk of volatility). At the
end of this process a written agreement is hopefully reached bringing
closure to the dispute on the students' own terms.
Which students can be mediators?
Primary schools – usually students
in 4th grade and up are trained so they can take the skills and potentially
use them for the remainder of their years in school.
It is appropriate to have a cross section of students
from the school but those who can be relied upon to be responsible and
committed are essential. Generally, children that natural leaders (in either positive or negative roles) make good mediators and whom other children would
naturally go to when they need someone to talk to about a problem are
ideal candidates. Students who are previously leaders in only negative roles because they do not have the academic or athletic ability to lead in these areas, often reverse their behavior when given a positive role in which to demonstrate their leadership abilities. Any student qualified by the school’s ‘no pass, no play’ policies may be selected for the training.
What are the potential benefits?
- Students learn to express their feelings and have empathy for the feelings of others. These are essential skills for success in all relationships.
- Success in all areas of life is dependent upon our ability to get along with others socially—in school, work and family. Peer Mediation & Conflict Resolution training prepares students for life.
- Students learn accountability, responsibility and natural consequences for their own behavior by listening to the impact they have had on another person and finding their own agreements to make things right with that person.
- Mediation provides a means
of resolving problems and can prevent escalation.
- Conflict is accepted as
a normal healthy part of relationships when it can be managed constructively.
- Mediation encourages students
to take responsibility for their behavior and their relationships.
- Mediators improve their
skills in the areas of affirming, listening, communication, negotiating
and problem solving.
- Student self-esteem is enhanced and school performance
often improves.
- Schools with a peer mediation
scheme report that they have become more peaceful. Students know that
they have a dispute resolution system that is confidential and non-confrontational
and truancy levels are usually reduced.
- Teacher time and stress
is reduced as some of the need for disciplining, arbitrating and coercing
is lessened. They have more time and energy to devote to other issues.
- Students who have a sense
of their ability to manage relationship difficulties also have a heightened
ability to manage their learning.
- Young people trained in
mediation will go on to use their mediation skills outside school, for
example when there is conflict within their own family or when their
family is in conflict with their neighbors.
Do all schools have a peer mediation
program?
Relatively few schools have peer mediation.
To set up a peer mediation program takes a good deal of time, effort and
commitment on the part of the school administration, faculty and its students, and also the skills and
resources of a recognized and approved mediation service provider such
as Innovative Alternatives, Inc. to deliver the appropriate training.
A whole school approach to peer mediation is essential. To sustain and
support peer mediation and ensure its long term success, an implementation
team should be selected to coordinate and supervise the project on
a daily basis.
Where peer mediation schemes are up
and running, it has been found that mediation is an effective tool for
resolving disputes and keeping conflict to a minimum thus leading to
less anxious students and improved learning in the classroom.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Counseling Services
If you have a question regarding
services—how they work or which is most applicable—please feel free
to submit it to IAI@innovativealternatives.org.
What is counseling or psychotherapy?
Counselors and Psychotherapists perform what are commonly called 'talk therapies' assisting people to talk about their thought, feeling and behavior patterns to examine what is healthy and what may be dysfunctional and in need of change. This is done in order to learn to better obtain life goals, healthy relationships and/or a happier existence. Psychotherapy is much more a partnership between client and therapist rather than a doctor/patient model in which the doctor gives all the 'orders' for the patient to follow. Instead, the client is the expert on 'what unhealthy patterns they want to change' and the therapist is the expert on providing various techniques for 'how the client can go about changing' unhealthy patterns in their lives. Together, they set goals, monitor their achievement and go at the pace the client wishes to go.
How much does counseling cost?
As a nonprofit, IAI has various grant programs that completely support, or greatly reduce fees for those persons who have no other resources. For trauma populations, IAI’s Victim Assistance Program provides 6 free individual sessions. We offer sliding scale fees to those who have no insurance resources and/or wish to protect their confidentiality by not using their insurance as this will require filing a diagnosis that will always be available on one's medical record--particularly when one is in a profession that requires security clearance, law enforcement, nursing, etc. IAI accepts all major forms of insurance, in which case a client only pays their co-pay. If a client does not have insurance and makes too much money to qualify for sliding scale fees, the fee for a fully licensed therapist is $125, for a temporary licensed therapist is $100 and for interns is $65 per session.
Do you offer a sliding scale?
Yes, our sliding-scale is based on the total income of all persons working in the home. We have 3 sliding scales based on the credentials of the therapists.
What determines eligibility for sliding scale?
Clients must fill out our application for sliding scale and provide proof of income of all persons living in the home.
What do you mean by the 'credentials' of a therapist?
This answer has several facets. Graduate level clinical interns are in the last stages prior to gaining their degrees and provide counseling under the supervision of a licensed therapist. In the case of Marriage & Family Therapists and Licensed Professional Counselor-Interns, they have obtained their master's degrees and have been granted a temporary license until they have completed 3,000 hours of clinical work. They are under weekly clinical supervision of a fully licensed mentor, who is also certified and licensed for this role by the state of Texas as a Clinical Supervisor. In both of the latter situations, a client has lower fees due to the lower level of credentialing, but clients may be assured that their therapist is discussing their case with a very seasoned clinical supervisor. In essence--you have 2 therapists for the price of one. Finally, fully licensed therapists have several different types of licenses such as Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC), Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW), and Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists (LMFT). There are also several types of doctoral degrees which give therapists the ability to perform clinical work such as Ph.D., Ed.D, Psy.D., and M.D.'s in Psychiatry. IAI has periodically employed all these types of credentials.
Is every therapist on every insurance panel?
No. Obtaining acceptance on most insurance panels typically requires therapists to be fully licensed, as well as , completion of an application and approval process by the insurance company. Some companies only allow so many therapists for a given geographic area, and others require a certain number of years of experience. Therefore, it may take a given therapist several months to gain access to many insurance panels and not all therapists are on all insurance panels.
How often do I need come in for counseling?
Most clients attend once per week for a 50 minute session. As goals are reached for therapy, this schedule will typically spread out to every other week or monthly depending on the client need for support or desire for accountability as they work to make their new behavior patterns permanent. This may take a few weeks for some people and months for others.
Can I come in more that once a week?
When a client is in crisis and in need of additional support, it is permissible to come more than once per week. Examples of this would be after the homicide of a family member, or in the aftermath of release from the hospital after a suicide attempt.
Do you offer Christian Counseling?
Yes, we do but only at a client's request and by providing a working definition to your therapist about what this means to you.
Define to me what Christian Counseling consists of?
It can mean including prayer in sessions, reference to scripture or assignment of studies on passages relevant to one's issues and/or looking at how issues of forgiveness may impact one's relationships or mental health. However, therapists will not include anything with which a client is not comfortable. We will also refer denominational questions to pastors.
I have understood some pastors and church leaders to say that, “People would not need counseling if they would just follow the Bible,” is it wrong, or a lack of faith to get counseling when you are a Christian?
If we could all follow the Bible perfectly, we would be without sin like Jesus, so in a way this is true, but frankly unattainable. With all due respect to these leaders, Christians struggle with addictions, grief, past trauma, and family crises. They suffer functional difficulties of various kinds, as well as chronic mental illnesses and need to build their relationship skills just like other people. It is very difficult to know if you are engaged in dysfunctional behavior when abuse for instance was ‘normal’ in your family of origin. It makes it even more difficult to get help when your spiritual leaders make these kinds of statements, and most do not mean it as a discouragement to get help—simply an encouragement to make sure that you have applied God’s Word to your situation. That said, Christian Counselors will all tell you that Christian Counseling adds tools we do not have otherwise and that studying and following scripture is absolutely healing for many mental and emotional health conditions. However, there are conditions that have a physiological basis—just like blue eyes or brown hair. We would not think of discouraging someone from getting treatment for cancer, we should not discourage treatment for psychological conditions either. The goal of therapy is to improve one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors toward others and to assist individuals in fulfilling their life’s purpose to the fullest—the same as the secondary goal of Christianity. The first goal of Christianity is to know Christ. After salvation comes what Christians refer to as ‘sanctification’ and Christian Counseling can become one component of this process—which is learning to live and treat others more like Christ.
What is play therapy? Can it really help my child if they have been traumatized?
Yes it can help your child. Children do not have the words and not even adolescents always talk out what is bothering them. Children ‘act out’ their stressors. Children will show a therapist through their play what they are going through. A therapist may also be able to teach parents how to play with their children at home in order to keep them from acting out anxiety and depression at school that may in fact get them in trouble, when in fact, they need support.
Does my child go back and talk to the counselor alone or do I need to be in there?
You will likely not go back into session with your child after the first session. Initially, you will go back with your child in order for the therapist to discuss the limits of confidentiality. This entails explaining to your child, that you as a parent can give the therapist any information you think is important for them to have about how your child is doing at home, school or with friends; but that the therapist will never tell the parent what a child says. The therapist will also always tell the child what you share with them at appropriate times in order to address the issue and get the child's perspective on the problem. It is permissible for the therapist to tell the parent that the child is working well in therapy, to give them information on the nature of play therapy for young children, or to work with parents and children together on relationship issues. Therapists will not break a child's confidentiality unless they are in danger of hurting themselves, hurting others or actually ask the therapist to assist them in discussing an issue with one or both parents and/or siblings.
Can my therapist write me a prescription?
No, only psychiatrists and other medical doctors can write you a prescription for psychotropic medication.
Who qualifies for the Victim Assistance Program?
Any person who has been the victim of a crime, regardless of when the crime occurred and regardless of whether or not any charges were filed, is eligible for the Victim Assistance Program. The sole requirement is that the focus of each session must be on the crime itself and the consequences that it has had on you.
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