You have probably come across these professions and wondered what’s difference? More importantly, what do these differences mean for therapy? It’s easier to start with the similarities: an LICSW, LMFT, LPCC are all master’s-level mental health professionals that can assess, diagnose, and treat the full range of mental and emotional disorders through the use of psychotherapy. The real difference is the underlying philosophies each profession operates from. For instance, a traditional psychologist would focus on a person’s inner world to find the root of dysfunction. This often involves spending time discussing a person’s childhood. An LPCC may see the root cause of behaviors as a developmental cause. An LMFT will focus on the dynamics and quality of your relationships.

I am an LICSW. The hallmark element of clinical social work is to consider the bio-psycho-social aspects of a problem. In other words, I use a "person-in-environment" approach that involves a thorough consideration of the biological, psychological and social factors that can affect a person's functioning and well-being. While your childhood is very relevant to how you attach to loved ones, build self-esteem, and navigate the world, I also spend time exploring your current relationships, work stress, medications, sleep schedule, historical/generation trauma, and access to resources. Clinical social workers tend to have a large toolbox for dealing with all kinds of behavioral, psychosocial, and everyday issues life throws at us.

Bottom line, all of these professions are equally valuable and you can’t go wrong when choosing a helping professional.

Great question, lot’s of reasons.

In order to reimburse therapy services with insurance, I would have to determine you have a “medical necessity” to get help for mental health illness. I would be required to assign a diagnosis found in the DSM-5 (most common ones are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder) This diagnosis would become a part of your permanent medical record and could potentially have negative impacts when obtaining life insurance, handling a firearm or working in a field where your decision-making may come into question. What’s more, the DSM-V lacks diagnoses that cover the most common reasons people seek help, such as self-esteem building, life transitions, relationship conflicts, personal development, self-improvement, boundaries, developmental and attachment trauma. These are not considered debilitating enough to pay for and therefore are not reimbursable by the vast majority of insurance companies. Our human sufferings and experiences do not need to be pathologized to get clinically-effective support for.

Insurance companies also dictate the frequency of sessions, type of therapy used, and how many sessions a client can have. By not taking insurance, we can decide how many sessions and use many evidence-based interventions.

Finally, insurance companies rarely reimburse a therapist at their going rate, payments are often delayed by MONTHS, or claims get denied. A therapist charges based on their experience, training, education, and location. An insurance rate usually means a therapist must take on more clients than clinically advised, which which means more work and less money for your therapist, and now your therapist is burnt out.

Yes. Our conversation stay between us unless you authorize me to speak with your providers.

Since I do not take insurance, this also improves the level of confidentiality I can guarantee.

There are some exceptions we will cover in the intake paperwork and in our first session

This depends on the amount of support you are needing. Most people start out with either weekly or biweekly (every other week) sessions. This is something we will determine in our phone consultation, or in our first session together.

If you’re in crisis and need to talk with someone now:

Call 988 for Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

24-hour National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or the 24-hour crisis text line by texting “MN” to 741741.

Hennepin County Crisis: 612-596-1223.

The Cope mobile crisis team can come to where you are. Cope responds to anyone in Hennepin County who needs an urgent response.