Dear Josh:

You are welcome. When I mentioned psychotherapy I didn’t mean medication. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor prescribing medication, drugs, that is. Most psychotherapists are not medical doctors, so they don’t prescribe drugs.

Also, I wrote “quality psychotherapy” because there is plenty that is not quality, that is a waste of money and sometimes harmful. It takes the right psychotherapist to make the process of healing successful. It takes a competent, professional, hard working, dedicated, honest therapist to make a difference, and it takes a therapist who went through a good enough of healing in his or her personal life.

A quality psychotherapist is not  one who just sits there time after time, nodding, appearing like he is listening, maybe says something once in a while and then says: our time is up, at the end of 50 minutes or so. A quality therapist will get to know you in the first few sessions, then give you his evaluation of you and a plan, including objectives and ways to meet those objectives successfully. He will teach you skills along the way, give you homework from session to session, so the work is not strictly done in the 50 minutes only. My therapist gave me homework from session to session in the form of handouts to read and fill in, he sent me guided meditations to listen to (via email)- he emailed me homework assignment after the sessions via email, that is, he used time for which he was not  paid to do so and he based the homework assignment on the latest session we had, figuring out what it needs to be. Then the following session we went over the homework assignment. He also went over the 50 minutes or so, most of the time, he didn’t mind to go over when he didn’t have another appointment next.

It can be expensive, it may not be, a sliding scale is when the cost is determined according to your income. Some health insurance policies pay for part of psychotherapy (if your therapist evaluates you in the first few sessions, determining you suffer from a particular condition, that specified condition may be covered under your health insurance).

anita