Ground Well Counseling is a practice devoted to facilitating every person’s healing and agency. Though most sessions are focused at an individual level, social justice, healing and environmental wellbeing are essential components of the practice.
Rates and Sliding Scale Policy
Rates and sliding scale policy document for Ground Well Counseling Services, PLLC
More information
Why a sliding scale?
Our society has many challenges, and income and capital inequity are pervasive throughout the system. Income and capital inequity also interact with and are the outcomes of other system-wide social inequities, marginalization, and oppression that have existed since (and before) this country was formed. A sliding scale is one way to acknowledge that we did not all come into the world with access to the same resources and opportunities. It also recognizes that our culture financially values some professions far more than others in ways that often do not represent the true value of those professions.
By asking people who can pay more to do so, I can offer therapy to people with fewer resources while sustaining my own livelihood.
How do I figure out where I land on the sliding scale?
Take a look at the sliding scale policy, which has some examples that may help you figure out where you land. For further help, especially regarding the difference between a financial sacrifice and a financial hardship, please see this helpful article from Worts and Cunning Apothecary, who has a very clear and eloquent exploration of this topic.
Why not insurance?
Insurance requires a diagnosis and defined course of treatment. While this can be useful in providing structure, furthering research, and maintaining regular feedback, it can also be rigid and prescriptive, as insurance companies can dictate the number and length of sessions as well as what they consider acceptable treatment for different diagnoses. These requirements often seem to stem from insurance companies’ desire to justify their expenditure and less to do with meaningful support or treatment. Working outside the insurance model allows us to be flexible and responsive to your actual needs and what would truly best support you. If working with one or more diagnoses makes sense for you, I want to be clear that I do also support that. I also think it can be useful, at some point, for every client to understand more about what goes into diagnosis.
In our culture, which our insurance system is based in, there tends to be a focus on individual pathology, and most diagnoses reflect this, however, I understand that our environment is a set of systems at interplay with each other. Imbalance in some parts of the system often reflects imbalances in the system as a whole, and it can be therapeutically important to understand environmental and systemic influences on our own mental health. In contrast to insurance companies’ typically rigid restrictions on time, frequency, duration, and price of treatment, placing the onus on individuals to meet the needs of the insurance companies, providing a sliding scale is my attempt to acknowledge systemic effects on individual agency and wellbeing.
Much of the research and theory that permeates the mental health system in this country is based on a predominately white and male perspective. Insurance naturally is embedded in that system, which is full of bias--usually unintentional, but still very present. While I deeply value the ethics in my field and the more progressive parts of my training, I also believe that we need to explore different ways to support emotional well-being that are not rooted in biased and oppressive systems.
Why is counseling so expensive, even at the lowest end of the sliding scale?
As a self-employed therapist, my session rates need to cover the cost of running my business, maintaining my licensure, and taking care of my own well being, including things such as: administrative and documentation software, website maintenance, training, supervision, consulting, continuing education, my own vacation/sick time, health insurance, and general costs of living, etc. My rates are set to support my livelihood and care for myself so that I can be as effective in my work as possible.
I am committed to offering free content via my website and other avenues . I carry one pro bono/highly reduced fee slot per week at all times. I am actively engaged in and always seeking additional collaboration/creative partnerships that make support more available and affordable (e.g. offering programming through libraries, hospitals, etc., that is low/no cost to the participants.)
What if even the lowest rate is too much for right now?
Please, talk to me about it: I maintain at least one pro-bono or reduced-fee slot per week, so depending on scheduling, we may be able to find a solution that works for us both.
Even more information
Thanks to Elemental Counseling for discussion, words, and help with this.
Worts and Cunning has an excellent exploration of sliding scales and the reasons behind them. If you are curious to learn more, I definitely recommend exploring their website. https://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/sliding-scale