Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.

•  Treated with respect, dignity, and privacy in a caring and considerate manner.
• Assured of confidentiality regarding their care and records and have a right to approve or refuse the release of their records, except when required by law or in a life-threatening situation.
• Right and a responsibility to ask questions and to participate in decisions involving their care.
• Entitled to information concerning the diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and the assessment in terms that can be understood.
• Those who decide not to be treated will be informed of the medical consequences of their refusal.
• Have the right to voice concerns or complaints without fear of reprisal.

Therapy is hard work. It involves sharing sensitive, personal, and private information that may have been avoiding for years. Unfortunately, problems don’t go away just because we have “attempted to sweep them under the rug”. They are always there and typically manifest into bigger obstacles in our life. If you are invested in your well-being and acknowledge that you need help, you will implement positive change!

It is initially difficult processing the events in our life that have caused us pain. It is as if you broke your leg and did not seek professional care to properly mend your leg. Your doctor may need to break your leg (which will hurt for some time) and recast it, in order for your leg to heal properly. That is the same with therapy. It may initially hurt emotionally, but if you truly work with your therapist….you will feel better!

The therapist helps the patient examine patterns and interactions in his/her own family. With this information, we explore the patients' individual behavioral patterns and how they are played out under various levels of pressure and tension in other relationship systems (i.e. at work, with friends, in a group). How the patient reacts and responds under various levels of pressure of stress and tension is more clearly understood. Once the awareness becomes clear, the patient is better equipped to begin his/her journey towards what Bowen calls differentiation of self or defining a self.

This defining of a self means having the ability to navigate oneself through the emotional intensities and challenges of life while remaining calm and mindful of the situation. It is the ability to decrease one's own level of anxiety to the point that one begins to think more clearly and respond with clearly thought out facts as opposed to reacting with tension ridden emotions (such as criticism, blaming, or feeling the need to be right). This is a state when the individual is responsible for self and neither fosters nor participates in the irresponsibility of others.

 Goodwin College is extremely careful to protect the confidentiality of our records. Information about your visits will not be disclosed without your permission to any College official or faculty member, or to your family, friends or roommates except in very specific circumstances. Those circumstances are limited to:

1. If the client /student is believed to be a danger to him or herself (Imminent Harm to Self) or someone else (Imminent Harm to Others). Suspected abuse or neglect of a vulnerable individual (ex. child, elderly, someone cognitively or physically limited).
2. A court can compel a therapist to testify about what is discussed in therapy. This is not often done, but most ethics codes state that therapists are required to follow court orders.
3. When your lawyer introduces your state-of-mind in a trial, your therapy records may then be an open book at the trial. A recent court ruling upheld this principle.
4. Your therapy records may be a part of a larger medical record. If treatment occurs within a large healthcare system, then all therapy notes may be available to any health provider treating you for any purpose. This is true at the Veterans Health Administration in the United States, for example. As electronic medical records become more common the availability of this information may increase.
5. Your insurance company often gets detailed information on your therapy. At one time they only received basic information, such as diagnosis. As managed care became popular in the U.S. the "care managers" have demanded more and more information about therapy.

I, the clinician, with your written consent, may provide clinical information to another professional for the purposes of further treatment.

I am committed to offering high quality services. The clinician will make written recordings of individual and group therapy sessions that may be reviewed by my supervisor for consultation on treatment planning.

 Some of the reasons are if you are struggling with:

• Mental Health: anxiety, depression, mood disorder, schizophrenia,
• Relationships: family, friends, partner, bereavement
• Financial: medical, housing, food, clothing, employment
• Physically: low self-esteem, identity, transgender, poor body image, eating disorder
• Academic: not knowing how to study, struggling with a learning disability or yet to be identified, challenges with a professor, not getting accepted into your career choice, low GPA

Yes, if the person is your child and willing to participate in therapy. Please call me if your child is refusing, so I could provide you with options on how best to handle the situation. Typically, if an adult is assessing therapy, they really should schedule their own appointment. If you feel that the person is in critical need of services (mentally decompensating, has expressed suicidal or homicidal ideation) CALL 911 and REPORT IT!!!