Health insurance companies cause the biggest problems with confidentiality. When you authorize me to bill your health insurance company, you also authorize me to answer their questions, and most managed care companies ask many questions about mental health treatment. What happens to your privacy after the information gets to the insurance company is anybody's guess. Insurance companies routinely share information with each other, and many employers consider health records when hiring.

Yes. Counseling is confidential except when an individual is a danger to self or others. All legal and ethical guidelines regarding confidentiality are adhered to.

Counseling or psychotherapy is the process where someone seeks help for problems of an emotional nature from a trained professional in a confidential setting. By establishing a positive, trusting relationship, the therapist will work with you to learn how to cope with the problem by learning new skills and/or different ways of looking at situations. In the beginning stage of therapy, your therapist will ask about your concerns and goals to gain a deeper understanding of you.

Life coaching deals with the present and future. It does not examine the past but instead creates your future. Many of my clients have found the coaching I provide to be therapeutic, but it is not therapy. Counseling and psychotherapy usually deal with problems and healing. It entails working with the past as well as the present. Also, life coaching is not considered a mental health service per se and is therefore not covered by health insurance.

I do trancework. I am skilled at a variety of trance-based modalities such as Waking Dreams, Focused Trance Thoughtforms, Hypnosis, Guided Imagery, Meditation, Hyperempria, Creative Visualization, Neurolinguistic Programming, Active Imagination, and other approaches. I don't do counselling work per se nor do I do psychotherapy. What I do is more akin to coaching or mentoring utilizing focused trance.

Counseling helps people deal with particular problems in day-to-day living. The counselor works with you to identify problems, to set realistic goals, and to develop skills in problem solving, coping, and interpersonal relations. Psychotherapy is a more intensive process that promotes emotional awareness and psychological development. The process can strengthen one’s sense of confidence, self-acceptance, and responsibility in daily life.

The best time to seek counseling or therapy is before your problems or symptoms have become too severe. This will give you the best chance of feeling better quickly and preventing more complicated problems. Even today, many people still feel a sense of stigma or shame around seeking help. Just about everybody can benefit from therapy at some point in his or her life.

Historically, counseling referred to help with everyday problems and psychotherapy was used to describe treatment for mental illness. Today, these terms are used interchangeably. Lakeview Center's therapists have degrees in psychology, psychiatry, social work, or counseling, but we all work with a wide range of problems using a similar approach. (See our approach to therapy). Pharmacotherapy is the use of medication to address emotional difficulties.

While these three terms are used randomly and is more of a matter of semantics rather than clinical meaning and there are major overlaps between these three practice modalities, there are some differences in my understanding that I would like to share with you. Psychotherapy tends to be associated with a process of psychological treatment that is longer-term and open ended.

Counseling and psychotherapy are focused on analyzing or finding the reason behind a problem. Some therapists believe that in order to make life changes, the client must understand why they are behaving in a certain way. Coaching is focused on creating a future based on where the client stands in the present. It concentrates on tracking patterns of language and behavior. Coaches then work with those patterns so that the client can make useful changes in their lives.

Often people ask what makes pastoral counseling different than other therapy. One answer is that we encourage the whole person in our work: body, mind, and spirit. We do not operate only on the medical model of illness and pathology. Sometimes our problems and challenges are physical and often mental, but many times they are spiritual. Pastoral counseling is a unique form of psychotherapy which uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth.

Pastoral Counseling is generally used for both pastoral counseling and pastoral psychotherapy. Technically though there is a difference. Technically speaking pastoral counseling is brief and focuses on an identified issue; “My parent just died,” “I lost my job and need some support,” “I’m thinking about changing jobs,” etc.

In most states communication between a psychologist and their client is protected by law, comparing it to attorney-client privilege. However, there are generally recognized exception to this confidentiality protection. Psychologists have a "duty to warn" if they learn that a client plans to harm themselves or another person, and psychologists are also legally obligated to report child abuse.

Information about you and your therapy will not be transmitted to others without your knowledge and written consent. By law, an exception is made where there is clear and imminent danger to you, others, or society, or when children are abused or neglected. The success of psychotherapy is dependent upon an honest and trusting relationship between the client and therapist. You should feel assured that your therapist is fully committed to preserving your privacy and earning your trust.

Your contact with the Counseling Center is strictly confidential and not part of your academic record and no information will be disclosed without your written permission. Please note: The Financial Aid office has a new website that answers many questions. If your question is not located in this section, please see:

In psychotherapy, you talk with your family doctor, a psychiatrist, or a therapist about things that are going on in your life. The focus may be on your thoughts and beliefs or on your relationships. Or the focus may be on your behavior, how it's affecting you, and what you can do differently. Acetylcholine: A key chemical in neurons (nerve cells) that acts as a neurotransmitter and carries information across the synaptic cleft, the space between two nerve cells. Abbreviated ACh.