Nicole Boggan, LPC at Diversus Health, talks about how counseling can help you, what the therapeutic process is like, and how it works. Tune in to learn more from Nicole about counseling at Diversus Health.
Video Transcript
Hi, there. My name’s Nicole Boggan and I’m an LPC. I currently work as one of our clinical supervisors at the Ruskin location at Diversus Health. I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes today just going through the therapeutic process and really kind of discussing how it works. So generally, to kind of kickstart that process, you would call into our Access Center and get set up for an initial diagnostic assessment. Through this assessment, your provider’s goal is really to kind of address what are the presenting problems, what is it that is prompting you to seek services, and how did you sort of get to this place where you are now requesting services. There’s going to be a lot of questions that might be surrounding you know your childhood, your young adult life, sort of, different stressors or maybe some you know, elements of emotional turmoil that have been present in your life, and just sort of discussing what it is that you’re really wanting to address and work on.
Then we would move on to treatment planning which is incredibly important in regard to the therapeutic process. We’re looking at “what are your sort of goals?” “What are the things you’re wanting to work on?” “What changes are you wanting to see in your life?” And then how do we sort of try to create this roadmap to help you to reach those kind of changes? Through treatment planning, we might determine that in addition to individual therapy, there might be a group you want to engage in or that might be helpful in addressing some of the symptoms or the issues that you’re presenting with. Or you may determine that, “hey, I really want a referral for medication management. I’d like to see if that is something that might be helpful as well.” Through treatment planning, I think that that’s a great time to be able to discuss different sort of services that you might need in addition to therapy that are going to really help you to reach those goals.
In regard to the therapeutic process, I think it’s really important to discuss, regardless of what treatment modality or specialization that your provider has, that the therapeutic relationship is really, really crucial in helping to develop change, helping to create change for you as well. So, the therapeutic relationship is a professional relationship. It’s really built on things like trust, respect, collaboration, things like that. And so I think it’s very important to recognize that you know your therapist kind of takes a different role than maybe like a friend or family member would. As a therapist, we’re really looking at things through kind of this clinical, this sort of counseling lens, and that that time is really about you. Our kind of role is to sort of help to provide some level of guidance maybe or kind of help to create, you know, “hey, have you thought about things this way?” Maybe you’re needing to work on emotional regulation, behavior modification, maybe communication and boundary-setting are really kind of difficult or they’re challenging. Your therapist is really someone who is focusing on those kind of topics with you and really being able to look through this clinical lens.
I also think it’s important to recognize that through therapy, really the goal there is to be able to navigate through feelings, maybe identify behaviors that are not working or that are just sort of creating issue or conflict in your life and be able to recognize and change those. Being able to identify maybe irrational thinking or areas of difficulty that through therapy can maybe be changed or redirected so that they just function better for you overall. I think really the main goal for therapy is getting you to a place where you can sort of live a life that you are happy with or at least content with and that you feel like you have the tools and the skills to do that so that eventually you can kind of say, “hey, thanks for the therapy that you provided or that we did together,” but that you feel comfortable and confident in being able to sort of address stressors and address difficulties as they come along. So, I hope that this was informative and a little bit helpful just as a kind of quick snapshot as far as what counseling is and what it’s really all about.
*Request an appointment to speak with one of our professional mental health providers at Diversus Health and get started today. If you need immediate assistance, please call our crisis hotline at 844-493-8255, or text ‘TALK’ to 38255.