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What are your payment and cancellation policies?
I accept payment by cash and e-transfer. Payment is due on the day and prior to the session.

A minimum of 48 business day hours notice is required to cancel appointments, or the full session fee will be charged. Instead of cancelling and skipping appointments, clients are to reschedule appointments as soon as possible. The fee for late cancellations may be waived (at the therapist’s discretion) in cases of emergency or other extenuating circumstances provided the client successfully reschedules the appointment before the next regularly scheduled appointment. Appointment availability cannot be guaranteed. Late arrivals of 15 minutes or more are marked as “no shows” and billed the full session fee.

Are your services covered by OHIP? What about private insurance?

As a Registered Psychotherapist (RP) my services are covered either in full or in part by some insurance providers, bursaries for students with disabilities (BSWD), student healthcare plans, and Employment Assistance Programmes (EAP). Check with your provider to ensure that you have coverage for psychotherapy from a Registered Psychotherapist. Instead of offering direct billing, I provide receipts for you to submit for reimbursement. 

How do you protect my privacy/confidentiality?

I take your privacy and confidentiality extremely seriously not only by following the standards of practise outlined by the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) but also by adding additional safeguards to protect you and your loved ones because I understand that neurodivergent and genderdivergent people’s personal health information is far more identifyable than that of neurotypical and cisgender people’s information.

For example, I am very careful about selecting trustworthy healthcare providers when conducting case consultations, and am sure to disclose as little information as possible. Sometimes this includes not disclosing seemingly innocuous basic demographic information that is often routine part of the formal case consultation format.

Before we begin working together, we will review and discuss my detailed confidentiality agreement that outlines how I protect your confidentiality, as well as the legal limits to confidentiality that I am subject to, in order to make sure that you agree with the terms of service. Ask me more about the additional safeguards that I have built in to protect you and the ones you love.

In order to work together, you must have a) have a private space where you can meet with me alone without being seen or overheard, and b) have a securely encrypted internet connection, up to date anti-virus software and c) keep up to date on cyber security methods and follow them. Without these elements in place, I am not able to provide psychotherapy and counselling.

Is your office accessible?

All sessions are currently being provided remotely (either by telephone or through my secure medical-grade clinical video conferencing system) during COVID-19. I will continue to offer remote sessions regardless of the future status of the pandemic.  

My office location is mostly wheelchair accessible (doorways are wide enough, there are elevators and washrooms but no automatic doors). Unfortunately, the entrance and waiting room are not scent-free, but the office itself is. The washrooms are gender segregated, but there is an alternative private single stall washroom on the main floor, which you can access by asking the concierge.

How long does it take to see results?

It depends on your circumstances, needs and goals, and the type of psychotherapy.

In order to do justice to the depth and breadth of therapeutic work, I focus on providing long-term and mid-term psychotherapy. To give you a rough idea – mid-term ranges between approximately 24 – 48 appointments (6 months – 1 year), and long-term ranges around 48 appointments to several years.

When deciding on fit with a psychotherapist, please keep in mind that it is not possible to ‘shorten’ mid-term and long-term psychotherapy in order to access short-term or brief psychotherapy, as they involve two very separate and distinct therapeutic approaches. 

How is therapy structured?

The first few sessions focus on orienting ourselves: ascertaining what the issues are, building a strong line of communication, coming to an understanding of eachother's process, and formulating intentions / goals, an approach, plan, and estimated duration together.  I strive to strike a balance between learning about your past experiences (to better understand your present experience) while generating practical tools and strategies to alleviate the most pressing issues at hand. As the more acute issues are attended to, more space is opened up to uncover the 'root causes' of these issues so that they can be addressed at the core, and future issues can be prevented. Usually I recommend that we work in 6 month increments, where we reserve a full session once every 6 months to reflect on our work together and discuss whether to close, pause, or continue, though some clients prefer reflecting every 3 months or so. Reflection and feedback is build into the structure of each session as well, since it is an ongoing process of orienting and re-orienting ourselves throughout our work together.

Why is psychotherapy so expensive?

At first glance, it seems as though psychotherapists make a lot of money per hour. But for every clinical hour that you work with therapist, your therapist engages in several additional hours of research, charting and administration, consultation and supervision, professional development, teaching, writing, etc.

In addition to these ‘hidden’ hours, psychotherapists in private practise are responsible for additional overhead expenses, such as supervision fees, practise insurance, health insurance, professional registration fees, advertising and promotional expenses, healthcare grade charting and clinical management software, continuing education expenses, etc. etc.

Hopefully in future, vital Mental Healthcare Services will be covered under OHIP.