Find Answers
I’ve compiled answers to some of the most common questions people have about therapy.
Therapy can be helpful in creating the life you are wanting in several ways. Dr. Milton H Erickson believed that most of our limits are self-imposed by a function of the unconscious mind as a form of protection or some unconscious earlier learning.
Through the therapeutic relationship the therapist can create safety to explore the client’s innate abilities and work to remove these limitations when it is safe to do so.
Since every client is unique therapy can work in equally as unique ways. Some clients benefit from information. Some from the therapeutic experience. Others benefit from the unique therapeutic relationship. A talented therapist will work to understand, incorporate and utilize each client’s own uniqueness to assist the client in gaining more of what they are wanting.
No, I do not accept insurance.
Not working with insurance providers allows me to provide truly confidential sessions without having to provide your information to healthcare providers. I am not on any insurance panels in order to maintain the highest level of confidentiality and respect for my clients. Submitting payment requests to insurance companies gives them access to your private information, at many times to the detriment of the client. It also allows the insurance company to determine what services are deemed “necessary.” It is my belief that not only is your privacy of utmost importance but also that therapy should not be reserved only for persons deemed medically “sick.”
Private pay sessions are scheduled once intake paperwork is complete for new clients. Session rate is $120 per therapeutic hour.
When the payment is just between you and me, your information and work gets to stay between just you and me also. I am happy to discuss this in even more detail upon request.
This is a common question that almost every new client asks during their first session. The truth is that it is up to you. YOU determine the frequency at which we meet. Your level of motivation will set the schedule. Clients who schedule weekly report experiencing satisfaction with their results more quickly.
Some clients prefer a longer period between sessions to fully incorporate their learning and they benefit from meeting every other week. Clients who are only curious about therapy or who are needing something less will schedule less frequently.
While it is true that goals are achieved by working on them regularly, I always say that if therapy scheduling doesn’t work for you then the therapy won’t work.
Clients have their own good reasons for scheduling sessions. I will respect and honor your requests as best as possible within my schedule. Clients scheduling weekly or bi-weekly are offered recurring appointments as a courtesy to be sure that they get the scheduled times that work best for them within my availability.
Yes! As a private practice not accepting insurance you can rest assured that the content of our sessions is confidential. I do not share your information with anyone and I cannot even confirm that I am working with you without your direct permission (verbal in your presence or written permission required if you are not present). I take additional precautions to ensure your privacy that we can discuss in person if you prefer.
In my licensed role I am what is called a “mandatory reporter” which means that I am obligated to report very specific events of active, intended harm to self or others for public safety. Please notice the words “active” and “intended.” Please DO share your thoughts about hurting yourself or others in therapy, THOUGHTS are not report-worthy unless you display intent. It is very likely that all people have these thoughts from time-to-time and they are excellent topics for therapeutic work.
The only other time I must share anything is in a court order signed by a judge (not a lawyer). This rarely happens but if it does, it is my intention to keep your information as appropriately private as possible.
You can schedule an appointment with me a couple of ways.
If you prefer to call to schedule, you can reach me at 502-317-8185 during business hours (M-F 10AM – 6PM). If you get my voicemail, please leave your name and the best phone number to reach you.
You can also schedule an appointment through our contact form. You will receive a confirmation when your requested time is accepted.
This is a very tricky question! An Ericksonian therapist may argue that hypnotherapy (the use of hypnosis) does not work “ON” anyone. Ericksonian hypnosis is not “done TO people.” “ON” implies that the therapist is doing something TO the client and implies that the client is not in complete control of the experience, which is entirely false.
Does hypnotherapy work “FOR” everyone? The answer to that question is also tricky for different reasons. Hypnosis is not a magical cure-all. Hypnosis is a tool used to access the unconscious and assist in meeting client goals. There are instances where the mind is not yet ready to change or the goal is not quite addressing the problem or the goal is unreasonable. This is not the fault of hypnotherapy but a natural part of working together with the individual client at times.
Does hypnotherapy work “WITH” everyone? Now there’s a better question! Yet again, you will get different answers from different people. Some people have believed that they are not able to be hypnotized. Yet it is an every day experience for persons to go in and out of trance states completely naturally and without the help of a hypnotherapist. Dr. Kay F. Thompson believed that all people have the ability to go into trance and to use self-hypnosis with the one exception she cited as persons with severe intellectual disabilities, noting her own experiences.
Hypnotherapy can look much like other therapeutic models frequently. Therapists who are hypnotherapists will apply hypnotic principles to their therapeutic conversations and practices to inform their work for maximum efficacy. The client may experience the session like a “normal” talk-therapy session and report spontaneous improvements in and out of session or suddenly have new insights or realizations in their daily living.
Hypnotherapy can often times use what Betty Alice Erickson called Conversational Hypnosis. In this method there is no formal “induction,” no feeling any differently than you came in feeling. The hypnotherapist will utilize the trance already present in the client and will use it in the work to meet more of the client’s potential. Some of the time the experience will also seem like talk therapy and spontaneous realizations can occur for the client. Some of the time the client may sense the trance and leading of the therapist at times.
Formal hypnosis is what most people think about when they think of hypnotherapy, yet most hypnotherapists with report using formal trance/hypnosis in only a small percentage of their work. Formal hypnosis includes a period of developing the trance, using it within the work and will conclude. You may be asked to relax or imagine during formal trance.
Many hypnotherapists use hypnotic techniques and add these principals to other models of therapy such as Brief therapy, Experiential therapy, Art or Play therapy or even more.
Trances are natural states that we all come in and out of on a daily basis.
Some trances seem to come on spontaneously; some trances take a routine to build; some trances seem to be attached to people who are important in our lives and we find ourselves acting in very specific ways around them that may not be typical for us when they are not around. A common example of trance is that almost universal experience of driving to work, lost in thought, and parking only to realize that we don’t remember any bit of our drive there! We were so involved in our trance that muscle memory took over and got us to work!
Athletes and high-performing persons have patterns and processes for getting themselves into a state that improves their performance. You may have heard about these states as being called “flow” or “the zone.” These are intentional trance states developed to promote performance goals. These practices can benefit all people, not just athletes.
Trances have patterns and purposes to them. In therapy we may explore existing trances, we may shift or break existing trances or we may work together to generate completely new ones together!
Trances are such an every-day phenomenon that you needn’t even know that you are in a trance to benefit from therapy.
It is highly unlikely that a fully functioning human being cannot go into trance since it is a naturally occurring phenomena outside of therapy.
Clients who “resist/reject” a trance offered by a hypnotherapist often have a valid reason for doing so. A good hypnotherapist can work with whatever level of willingness/ability/awareness the client brings in.
At all times during hypnosis YOU are in full control of your participation level and you absolutely have the ability to reject the therapists suggestions and/or come fully out of a hypnotized state at any point in your experience. Your conscious mind has the ability at all times to awaken you from a hypnotized state and attend to any emergency or bodily need that arises.
After a hypnotic experience some clients benefit from moving their bodies, blinking their eyelids or exhaling forcefully or sighing to expedite regaining a fully conscious state easily. Your conscious mind will only accept suggestions that are in line with your desires.
Common misconceptions come from a number of places you can find in entertainment. Stage “hypnotists” are masters of selecting participants who WANT to engage in the entertainment. The television shows that resolve crimes because a person was “hypnotized” to commit the crimes are not based in reality either; these stories are entirely fabricated because, again, you cannot be hypnotized to do something you don’t already want to do.
Beginning briefly with Sigmund Freud, early uses of hypnosis (and a style called Authoritative Hypnosis that is still in practice in some offices today) are contingent on the hypnotherapist being the “authority” and then “does” the hypnosis “to” the patient. The premise to this type of hypnosis is that the hypnotherapist knows what is best for the patient and that the patient needs to listen to the hypnotherapist. Patients who are not compliant are seen as “resistant” or “not candidates for hypnosis.”
Ericksonian hypnosis is different because the hypnotherapist is working collaboratively with the expertise of the client, who absolutely is the expert on their own life. There is no power differential for clients willing to work that way. Erickson also touted the ultimate belief in the individual’s own unconscious mind as fully capable and able to solve the client’s dilemmas when engaged. Clients needn’t take the hypnotherapists suggestions at all to be considered capable of more than they recognize on their own.
Ericksonian hypnosis is generally not scripted. While a hypnotherapist may improve their skills by generating scripts for themselves or for future use by a client by way of a recording, most often the hypnotherapist will create the trance experience in the moment with the client, tailoring the experience directly to the client’s specific interests and needs.
While I would love to say “everything,” that simply isn’t true. Dr. Milton H Erickson taught that the intervention should match the problem. If a client’s problem is that they do not have enough or the most accurate information, we give the client information. If the client’s problem is a lack of experience, we give them an experience. If the client’s problem comes from the conscious mind we work with the conscious mind. If the client’s problem is rooted in unconscious processes, then we address unconscious processes with the most effective method: hypnosis.
Dr. Irvin Yalom posits that every mental health diagnosis is generated by dissociation. Many researchers agree that dissociation is a trance state. Because of these things it is possible that people experiencing mental health symptoms find the most symptom relief with hypnotherapy addressing their problematic trance states.
Dr. Milton H Erickson’s teachings demonstrate that “symptoms” are often attempted solutions and can be used or altered if not eliminated all together to create positive outcomes for clients. Dr. Kay F Thompson taught that anything the body can create it has the power to remove or restore using hypnotic states. These teachings and current discoveries in the world of neuroscience lead us to believe that the positive uses of hypnotherapy are extensive.
Make an appointment today to discuss what improvements may be possible for you.