How Do You Structure Therapy at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis?
Weekly therapy and a 12 session minimum - what’s the reason for that?
We get a lot of questions as anxiety therapists in St. Louis.
Questions like…How do you work with anxiety? How do anxiety and anger go hand in hand? How is your approach effective? How do I really know that you’re going to help me and/or my child?
We’re big on providing as much information as possible to our clients, because we know how important it is to make sure you’re working with the best therapist for you.
One way we ensure that we’re providing quality therapy is by tracking your outcomes scores on a weekly basis. From years and years of our own data, along with reviewing the literature, we know that weekly therapy is the most effective way for us to deal with what’s going on AND get you ready to graduate from therapy. 12 sessions is the minimum, and about 70% of our clients decide to meet for longer.
We’re not a good fit for people who want just a quick fix
And we’re also not a good fit for people who just want maintenance therapy. We’re here to help you and your child build anger and anxiety management tools, use them, and continue using them long after we’re done with counseling.
Why do you only offer weekly appointments?
We’ve found from tracking the data that weekly sessions are the most effective for making progress, rather than doing two steps forward, one step back
Of course, if you guys are out of town or your therapist is out of town, we can miss a week here and there and just tack an extra one on to the end
How do I know you’re going to schedule me with the right therapist? Don’t you guys have a huge team?
Fit is important. This is a great question to ask.
The research shows that the best predictor of a good outcome is the therapeutic fit. It’s so very important to us that we pair you with the best therapist for what’s going on, even when that means referring you to another therapist in St. Louis.
Clinical fit is important, as is the fit with the schedule, and the fit with the type of therapy you’re looking for. All of our therapists are trained in assessing for anxiety and anger, and receive ongoing supervision with Kelsey. In addition to this solid CBT and anxiety/anger background, therapists get to bring in their own skillset to make sure their tailoring their approach to you and your child!
You can learn more about each staff member and their approach on their staff bio page - and, many have also completed in depth interviews!
Starting therapy for you or your child is anxiety-provoking enough. We want you to be excited about your therapist, which is why we always do a free 15 minute phone consult first, before booking, to answer questions and make sure that we’re pairing you with the best fit for you.
Can we meet every other week, or do monthly check ins?
When we track the ORS and SRS (Outcomes and Session Rating Scores) for our clients, we find that we make more progress when we meet every week, vs. making slower progress when we meet every other week or less. That bimonthly meeting is kind of like two steps forward, one step back.
We’d much rather have you meet for 4 sessions over 4 weeks than 4 sessions over 8, because you’re making progress faster, and we’re able to reinforce skills and build on them vs. having to review previously-covered information.
And on top of that, in our outcomes, the kids who meet for 4 sessions over 4 weeks have a higher ORS improvement than the kids who meet 4 sessions over 8 weeks.
If we're getting close to the end of therapy, a lot of parents wonder if, rather than totally finishing up appointments, they can start meeting every other week or once a month. While check ins can be helpful, we don't want to hold you back from really graduating from therapy. We only provide weekly therapy, so we want to have the conversation with you about how we'll know that we're ready to finish up therapy, and that we're in a good place to feel confident about wrapping up. Of course, our therapists are always available to you, even after you finish up. So if you need to check in down the road, just send us an email! If we need to restart therapy, we can always do that, too.
Do we really have to come for 12 sessions? What if it’s not working?
We plan to meet for 12 sessions to start, because from tracking the data we’ve found that 12 sessions is a good amount to make some progress and start to build resiliency.
After 12 sessions, some clients are ready to graduate from therapy and others need to meet longer. About 30% of our clients graduate at 12 sessions and 70% end up staying for more long term therapy
That being said, we’re not going to make you keep meeting for therapy if it’s not effective.
If it’s not a good fit, or if we’re not making progress, your therapist will make sure to tailor the approach, try out new things, or if we’re still not making progress by session 7 or session 8 we might look at referring you out to another therapist who might be a better fit. It’s definitely an ongoing conversation between you and your therapist.
The other important piece is, people are calling us for anxiety therapy when there’s a problem.
People usually don’t start therapy willy-nilly. There’s usually a problem that’s been coming up for a long time. It’s really not like, ok, three sessions is going to totally solve the problem. It might make you feel better - but we want you to actually have that change happen. We want to be able to create the change and teach the skills, maintain them, and build resiliency in your child. Our goal is to create lasting change for you and your family.
So take the first step, and schedule a call with us today! We can’t wait to help.
Kelsey Torgerson Dunn, MSW, LCSW is the owner of Compassionate Counseling St. Louis and author of “When Anxiety Makes You Angry,” which will be published by New Harbinger in 2022.
Curious to learn more about anxiety therapy in St. Louis? Do your thoughts get way too loud? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We love helping with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website.