Frequently Asked Questions
While building a healthy relationship with friends and family is great for your mental health and is highly encouraged,seeking therapy is not the same as talking to your friends and family. While your loved ones always meean well, your relationship itself makes emotions and thoughts involved making it hard for them to be objective while talking to you. Further, conflict of interests, (eg: they want your marriage to work simply because they are your parents even though its not healthy for you) might actually make things worse for you. Lastly, even if it is an attempt to help you, they may share your conversations with others which is a breach of privacy.
The best part about therapy is that its for everyone. There is no criteria to see a therapist; you should only want to see one. However, to put things objectively, you should see a therapist if you see sudden changes or dysregulation in
- Eating habits
- Sleeping routine
- Moods
- Decision making capacity
- Close relationships
This is one of the biggest myths about therapy. The fact is that you do not need a diagnosis to start therapy. All you need is the desire to make small changes in your life, for the better, a laptop, internet, functional speakers and a microphone.
There is no timeline to therapy. You can seek counselling for as long as you want. However, it is essential to keep in mind that it takes atleast 6-8 sessions before you can see any changes, since we are working with long standing behavioural patterns and emotions.
My approach is exploratory and collaborative. Counseling and psychotherapy does not involve direct advice giving. In other words we figure out what you should be doing together. As a narrative practitioner, I strongly believe that you are the expert in your life. My role as a psychologist is that of a co-traveler who facilitates exploration, reauthoring and skill building via open ended questions, coping strategies and suggestions.
To prepare for your first session you should:-
- Sit in a comfortable and private space
- Journal any thoughts, ideas, topics that you want to discuss in therapy
- Keep a glass of water by your side
- Wearing comfortable clothing may be helpful
- Check your internet connection, speakers and microphone.
Generally, we meet once in a week for a duration of 50 minutes. After the initial 8 sessions, the frequency may be altered for your convenience.
A lot of people consider therapy expensive. However, I would urge you to consider the following
- Therapists need a minimum of five years of education before they see a client
- The duration of emotional labor limits the number of sessions a therapist can take a day, capping their income as well.
- Therapists need to do more than just take sessions which includes the following which either costs the therapist or is unpaid work therefore you are paying for a lot more than an hour
- Continued education and training
- Note making
- Supervision
- Therapy
- Reading
- Prepare for sessions
Payments for all sessions need to be made in advance, latest by the 5th of the month. I have a 24 hour cancelation policy. For any sessions cancelled later than 24 hours prior to the session, full fees will be charged.
When I block a slot for you I can’t give that time to other clients or do any other work incase of untimely cancelation. In other words that hour is wasted for me. Its like paying for a cancelled plane ticket.
Yes, You can choose to terminate therapy at any point of time. However, I will highly recommend having a termination session to ensure we can close our work in a healthy manner and prevent any difficult emotions later. It also allows for space for me to seek feedback and improve my services for future clients.
Some of the ways you can care for your mental health include
- Consistent sleeping routinue
- Have a balanced diet
- Regular breaks from work
- Frequent social interactions
- Limit and monitor social media use
- Reading self help books and applying what you learn
- Journaling
- Meditating
- Physical exercises
