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You may be looking at all this paperwork and wondering to yourself, “Boy, this is a lot of work up front.” Yes it is. I think it is important that you know a little bit about how my practice works and my theory of change before we begin working together. It is imperative that you have a clear understanding of what a psychological consultation is all about before you sign on. I’ve put together this booklet to help you know what you are agreeing to. I hate paperwork as much as the next person, but I’ve created all this paperwork so that you can have clear expectations about how I work. I’ve also created it so that I can gather as much data about you as quickly as possible so that we can dive in quickly. I’m not interested in spending lots of consultation time getting information that you can fill out ahead of time. After reading this booklet, I think you will be better prepared to agree to work with me and feel comfortable signing the consent to treatment form. The first thing you should know is that I am a psychologist. As such, my behavior is regulated by the state. I am licensed in Ohio and Indiana. Because of that, I have to obey laws that regular people do not have to obey. Most of the laws are designed to protect consumers – the people who seek out the services of a psychologist. They govern things like keeping records, saving the records for a certain period of time, or getting your consent to work with me. (I don’t do street therapy. I don’t walk up to people on the street and say; “You need therapy.” You have to want to work with me.) I don’t do psychological consultation with friends, family member or business associates. It tends to muddy the waters.
There is a legal obligation I have as a psychologist that I want to discuss in detail: it is confidentiality. I am obligated to keep private what we talk about in therapy. I don’t go to parties and tell people “You know, (insert your name here) came into my office and told me this…” I do consult with other professional to keep my thinking sharp, but when I do, I don’t tell your name. I sometimes use examples from my practice in workshops, but when I do, I am obligated to change some of the details so that no one could ever recognize it was you. Generally, if I give examples, it is a blend of information from a number of clients. I like to let you know this in advance, because I think you should know what to expect. If you have questions or concerns, please ask me about them. The other thing about confidentiality is that there are exceptions to confidentiality. There are times when I am obligated by law to break the confidential relationship. In Ohio, they include, but are not limited to the following:
I provide high quality psychological services to executives, professionals, business owners and their families who need assistance responding to life stressors such as depression, anxiety or marital conflict. I do not do long term, deep intrapsychic therapy. I do not see people on a weekly basis for years upon years. I deal with debilitating problems, but in a way that emphasizes getting back to a high functioning life. I am probably not like the counselors you see on TV or in the movies. I probably won’t say things like, “So what I hear you saying…” or “I feel your pain,” or “Talk to the empty chair….” While lots of capable and talented psychologists do those things, I don’t. It doesn’t fit with my approach to how people change. I think people change by modifying the way they think. I believe that changing a person's thinking process is the most reliable way of changing behavior and emotions. I think a psychologist can create an evocative emotional experience in a psychological consultation and get the person to change. But I think more reliably, a person will change if he or she is trained to think differently and then encouraged to behave differently. After thinking and behaving differently, the emotions will often follow suit. Now don’t get me wrong, I think emotions are vitally important, but I don’t think they should be driving the train. I think they should be on the train, but not the engine. My theory of psychological consultation is called “Cognitive” or “Cognitive-Behavioral.” If you’d like to read about the theory, you can pick up practically any book by Albert Ellis or Aaron Beck. They are the fathers of the theory. Just to warn you, Ellis can be a bit salty in his speech and offends some people. I probably wouldn’t ever invite the guy to my birthday party, but his theory is sound. I also have an efficiency model of psychological consultation. I want you to get back to your life, your community, your family and your work as quickly as possible. For example, if you walk into the emergency room (another place with an efficiency model) with a sprained ankle, you’ll be treated and released fairly quickly. If you walk in with a heart attack, you will stay longer – even though they want to get you back to your life as quickly as possible. Same goes for psychological consultations. If your problems are easily treated, you may only see me once or twice. If your problems are more complicated, it will take longer. The length of time for treatment varies by the problems. Let me expand on this point; I don’t have any desire to be your paid professional friend. I hope you have friends that you can talk to without having to pay them. If you don’t, then it will be one of our priorities to help you develop the skills to make some friends. I think it says something very bad about our communities, churches, and friends if we have to pay a professional to be a friend. I do not want that role in your life. I am a paid consultant. I am not your friend. I will be friendly and we will talk about things that you typically only talk about with your friends, but at the end of the day, you had to pay me. I view my work a lot like an accountant or an attorney. You have a tax problem; you contact an accountant. You have a legal problem; you contact an attorney. You have a personal or emotional problem; you contact a psychologist. There are three ways to utilize a psychologist’s services. I only like to work in two of the three ways. Let’s use attorneys to illustrate these three ways. The first is this: At some point in your life, you will probably hire an attorney. It may be something as simple as to have a will written or help with a traffic ticket. You have a legal problem; the attorney helps you solve it. You go back to your life. You don’t keep going back to the attorney’s office. People use my services this way too. They have a problem; they see me until the problem is solved, then they go back to their lives. The second is this: You may have an attorney who you refer to as “My attorney.” You say to yourself, “Hey, I need to write a will. I’ll use the guy who helped me out with the traffic ticket.” People go back to the person they have used before. The same holds true for my services. Sometimes, people see me for a time, we resolve a problem, they go back to their lives and I don’t hear from them for a while. Then later the same problem or another problem arises and they return to me. I am happy to do that kind of work. And to use the attorney example again for the third way, there are some people who won’t make a decision without consulting their attorney. They have an attorney on retainer. I do not want that kind of work. I do not want to foster the kind of dependency that results in people coming into my office with swatches of wallpaper and saying “Doc, which would use choose?” I do not want that type of role in your life. I want to train you to make good decisions on your own rather than needing me to make all your important decisions. I want you to go back to your life and live it. Because I have an efficiency model of psychological consultation, I tend to be direct and somewhat directive. I figure you hired me because you think I know something that you don’t know and you would like my perspective and information. I think it is my job to give it to you. It is not my model to let you squirm and struggle until you discover it on your own. There are a great many successful and competent psychologists who work that way. For many people it is remarkably powerful. It is, however, not how I work. Because I am direct and have an efficiency model, some have said, “Gosh Roger, you’re blunt.” Well, in my office I am blunt. In real life, I’m not blunt. If we are at a party and you have broccoli stuck in your teeth, I probably wouldn’t tell you, because I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. However, as a psychologist, you are hiring me to tell you about things you have not or cannot observe. It is my job to tell you those things. I don’t do it because I get a thrill out of it or because I am an insensitive clod. I do it because that’s why you’ve hired me. I will try to do it with sensitively and tact. I do not want to hurt your feelings, but I will tell you the truth. The initial consultation is pretty much spent with me gathering as much information about you as possible in as efficient a way as possible. Some people feel like they are getting drilled with questions and can sometimes be intimidated. Let me assure you that while the first consultation meeting does include lots of procedural stuff, future consultation meetings will not. Future consultation meetings will be more conversational and less procedural. The initial interview lasts 90 minutes. This is because I am gathering lots of background information and determining the best way to approach your problem. Most following sessions will last 50 minutes. At the end of the 90-minute session, I will have you fill out an assessment inventory. It usually only takes 10-15 minutes to fill out. It allows me to quickly figure out the symptoms that you are experiencing. This helps me to make better decisions on how to help you. In some cases, I will administer other psychological inventories. I only administer the inventories when I think that they will aid in our work together. I'll tell you ahead of time how much the inventories cost, how long it takes to administer them and their purpose. When you come for the initial interview, please be prepared with question to ask me. Be prepared to tell me what you want to accomplish in your work with me. One of my responsibilities as a psychologist is to see that you find the best service possible for you. If I am not the best guy for you, I’ll do my best to connect you to another person who could help you. Sometimes, all you need is a little information. I regularly do workshops and seminars in the community. If one of those would be best for you, I’ll be sure to let you know. It could be a couple of weeks between the time you received this booklet and your initial interview. If your concern is so pressing that you need to be seen immediately because of a life-threatening emergency, please call the Suicide Hotline at 614-221-5445 or the emergency room of a hospital near you. My office is not set up to be able to respond to regular life-threatening emergencies. If you have frequent suicidal impulses, your needs would be better served at another location. I am happy to help you connect with one of these other services. I’ve been doing psychological consultations since the late 1980’s when I was a graduate student. I’ve learned a few things in the intervening years about what makes for a successful psychological consultation. Mutual trust is essential. I’ve found that a few things are necessary for there to be mutual trust. The first criterion for trust is honesty. I will be honest with you and I expect you to be honest with me. I’ve worked with drug addicts, people referred by the courts and adolescents dragged in by their parents. I’ve found that as a rule, these people lie like a dog on a rug. I have been lied to by the best liars in the world and I believed them. I have been lied to by the worst liars in the world and I have believed them. I have discovered that I have a lousy lie detection system. If you lie to me, I will probably believe you. Why? Because I usually don’t have any collateral data. I don’t have anything to gauge your story against. My bias is to believe the people who work with me. If, however, I find out that you have been lying to me, I’m going to ask, “Why are you wasting your time and money and my time by lying to me?” I’ll refer to you someone who (a) you either won’t lie to or (b) has a better lie detection system than I do. I don’t do it because I am miffed because you pulled the wool over my eyes (it has been done so often that it doesn’t miff me much), but because as a psychologist, I am obligated to help you get the best help possible. If I am not that guy, then I need to refer you to someone who will be better at building that trust. In this way, I fulfill my goal of helping you get the best intervention. The second is related to behavior in the session. Even though I have a thought-based approach to therapy, it can still be an emotionally intense experience. People cry in my office (so I have tissues handy), sometimes people get angry in my office (so I have sound insulated my walls). Sometimes people cuss. If you want to do that, I won’t stop you. But some behavior impairs the mutual trust necessary for a psychological consultation. In the past, less than half a dozen people have done something that has shown that the mutual trust is gone. After they have done this one thing, I have never been able to make the psychological consultation successful. Because I now know from my experience that I have been unsuccessful in re-establishing a therapeutic relationship after that point, I now tell people, “If you do this thing, I will refer you out.” The thing is this: If you decide that I need to be cussed out. It is of the form. “Roger, you are full of “this,” you need to go “there” and when you get there, do “this” with yourself.” If this happens, I will refer you out. Not because my nose is out of joint. I have been cussed out by the best (in real life) and lived to tell the tale. Nor is it because I am so thin skinned that I can’t take criticism, or that I am so offended by such words. In reality, it is because I know my track record. I haven’t been successful in psychological consultation after that point. My obligation as a psychologist is to connect you with someone best qualified to resolve your concern. If I do not think I can be successful, I am responsible to connect you to someone who you either (a) won’t cuss out or (b) has been successful after being cussed out. Let me emphasize, in the cases of the hundreds of people with whom I have worked, this has occurred in less than half a dozen cases. I know the limitations of my practice. You should know them as well. I work well with successful people who have hit a hard patch in their lives. I work well to help them get back to being successful in their lives. I know that I do not have the 24-hour emergency support to treat people who are chronically suicidal, are actively struggling with an eating disorder or are having trouble staying connected with reality. It isn’t that I don’t care about people with those problems. In fact, I do care very much about people with those problems. I know, however, that my practice is not the best place for them, because there isn’t enough 24-hour structure to help them resolve their concerns. Likewise, even though I treat substance abusers, I know that early on, my goal is assessment and referral. My practice is not designed to assist an addict in stopping his or her use. I refer them to a more structured setting for that phase of treatment. I am useful to substance abusing clients as they have a bit of sobriety and are trying to keep from relapsing. People who succeed in their work with me are motivated, work hard and do their homework. Let me illustrate by explaining the opposite: I often begin the hour with the question, “Where do we begin today?” People who, week after week, respond with “I don’t know, where do you want to begin?” do not succeed. These people have not thought about how they want their lives to change. They want me to be the one to change them. The way I work and this kind of thinking don’t fit together. If I give you homework to do, I expect that you will have done it. I don’t have a red pen to mark off points, but I do expect you to try out what you’ve learned with me in real life. If you spend 1 hour a week with me and then fritter the other 167 hours of the week away, you can’t expect to make progress. Those who use the hour with me to springboard into work outside of my office make faster progress and graduate sooner. People who succeed with me take notes on what we discuss and review the notes between meetings. People who don’t succeed won’t think about our work in the intermediary time. People who succeed with me come to their appointments on time and call 24 hours in advance if they aren’t able to make it. If you are going to be more than 20 minutes late, it is usually better to simply reschedule the appointment than try to do all the work in half the available time. If you must miss an appointment, please call me as soon as possible at 614-799-2009. Should you fail to keep an appointment without calling to cancel the session 24 hours in advance, you will be billed for that missed appointment. Many people who work with me seek out treatment for their relationships. I work with unmarried couples, couples preparing for marriage, and married couples. I like people to know that I am a good marriage counselor, but a lousy divorce counselor. If you already have your divorce date set and make the appointment with me in order to say to yourself, “Well, we tried counseling…” then I am probably not the guy for you. I have a bias toward marriage. I’ll work like a dog to keep your marriage together. I want you to know that up front. I am not the kind of psychologist who says he will “Work for what is best for each individual and for the marriage, and sometimes that means the end of the marriage.” I think you should know that up front, because if that is what you want to work for, then I will refer you to a competent psychologist who holds that view. If you only want to work on saving your marriage, then I may be the guy. When people are having trouble in their marriage and considering divorce, they tend to think, “I am unhappy in my marriage, maybe I’ll be happy outside of my marriage.” I don’t think those are the only two options. I think there are two other options: (1) You can be unhappy outside of your marriage (I never work toward that goal) and (2) You can be happy in your marriage (this is my goal for you). I am not interested in having couples limp along in a marriage just so they can say; “We stayed married.” I am interested in couples having invigorated marriages. If you are interested in working hard to have an invigorated marriage, then we may work well together. You can call me at 614-799-2009. If I am available, I would be happy to speak to you. Otherwise, please leave a message. I will typically return phone messages shortly after I retrieve them. As I mentioned before, my practice is not designed for emergency services. If you are prone to needing frequent emergency service, my practice is probably not the best for you. I will be happy to assist you in finding a more appropriate treatment facility. You can contact me via email at hall@compassconsultation.com. I have a web site that has this information and other information about my work at www.compassconsultation.com. About email: It is not a guaranteed confidential form of communication with me. I currently do not offer encryption of my emails nor can I guarantee that all email packets sent to me won’t be lost or viewed in transmission. If you wish you communicate via email, I may respond. I do not guarantee immediate response of email. If you send email to me, you consent that I may respond via email, knowing it is not a guaranteed confidential communication. I will not conduct psychological consultation via the Internet. I wish to have more direct access to you than email will provide. If your use of email goes beyond basic communication, I reserve the right to charge for reading and responding to your messages. I will tell you if your email use becomes time consuming and warrants payment. Even though central Ohio is large, it is not uncommon that I bump into people who have done psychological consultations with me. In those cases, I will interact with you at the same level you interact with me. If you ignore me all together or want it to seem that you don’t know me, my feelings won’t get hurt and I will respect your desire for privacy. If you speak to me, I will be happy to respond, but I typically will not initiate communication with you, because I do not want to infringe on your privacy. Let me add, if you want to discuss your concerns with me out in public (including my waiting room), I cannot guarantee confidentiality of the communication. If someone overhears what you are saying to me, I cannot control that. Please use good judgment in such cases. I do not conduct psychological consultations outside of my office. I will not conduct psychological consultations in the waiting room, the parking lot or at the grocery store if we happen to bump into each other. If your social circle and my social circle begin to intersect frequently, we will discuss the option of you working with another psychologist. I do not work with people in psychological consultation who are in my social circle. For example, I do not do psychological consultation with people from my church. If you begin attending my church, I will refer you to another practitioner. I do not do this because I harbor any ill feelings toward my clients, but I have found it clarifies the nature and scope of the consulting relationship. I want my thinking to be clear as I work with you. My main office is housed in the Old Firehouse in Dublin. It is pretty easy to find. There is a big blue sign out front that says “Firehouse.” It isn’t the active firehouse; it is the old one, so don’t expect to find it by looking for fire trucks. This little stretch of State Route 161 is called Bridge Street, but it really is just 161. Free parking is available in the Dublin Municipal lot between High Street and Mill Dr.. The entrance to Dr. Hall’s office is on the east side of the building. Please see the map for more detail. Mine is a fee for service practice. People pay me at the time of service. I take cash, checks or credit cards. It is illegal for me to barter, so I can’t take the chickens you have stored in the trunk of your car. Please contact me directly for a directory of fees. If you do not bring payment with you, I will not be able to see you. While this policy may seem strict at first, it is done to prevent problems from arising in the future that could impair the psychological consultation process. Nonpayment or payment refused by the bank may be may be followed up by a collection service. As I mentioned above, I am not on any of the managed care program panels. If you would like your insurance company to reimburse you for a portion of my fee, you will need to check to see if they offer “Out of Network Benefits.” Many do and will reimburse you for some of my fee. To submit your own bills, I will give you a form, I call a “Superbill” it has the treatment codes, diagnostic codes and my identifying information that should enable your insurance company to process the claim. Your insurance company then pays you for your out of pocket expense. I highly recommend that you copy the Superbill before you send it, because it is not uncommon for insurance companies to lose the forms. I also encourage you to put your social security number on the form so your insurance company can more easily process the claim. I charge a small fee for additional paperwork above and beyond the initial Superbill. I’d also like to tell you a little about why I am not on the managed care panels. I recognize my strengths and weaknesses. I know that I do not like to do the administrative paperwork involved in being on a managed care panel and I do not have the support personnel to complete it. Second, I know that managed care agencies are less responsive to people like me than they are to you, their customer. You can call as a customer and get a faster result than I can as a provider. Third, I want to have a working relationship with you, not your insurance company. If I become an employee of your insurance company or enter into a binding contract with them, it could muddy the waters in my decision-making for your care. I never want to be in the position that I have to debate about what is best for you versus what is best for the insurance company. Fourth, it keeps you invested in what we are doing. If you only think about this process as costing whatever your co-pay is, it can keep you from working as hard as possible to finish the work. As I said before, I have an efficiency model. Sometimes the economic investment motivates people to work hard in a psychological consultation. I received my doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the Ohio State University in 1991. I completed a yearlong pre-doctoral internship at the University of Utah just prior to receiving my degree. After I graduated, I worked as a Staff Psychologist at Ball State University's Counseling and Psychological Services Center. From 1993-1998, I worked as the Director of Counseling & Family Ministries at a large church in Dublin, Ohio. I simultaneously operated this private practice. Since January of 1999 I have worked solely in this private practice. I have been an adjunct Faculty member at Capital University. I have also been an instructor at Ohio State, Ball State and University of Utah where I have consistently been a highly rated teacher. I was a recipient of the Glenna Joyce Scholarship at Ohio State that was, at the time, the most prestigious scholarship at the university. I am a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In graduate school I was a recipient of a University Fellowship – a graduate scholarship based on merit. In addition, I received one of two Graduate Research Awards in a national competition sponsored by the American College Personnel Association for my dissertation research. After our work is over, I like to follow up with clients to see how things are going or let you know other services I am providing. I often do this via a newsletter or updates on my web site via mail or email. If you would like to receive such communication, please let me know. There is a spot on the accompanying forms to indicate your preference. Thanks! Sincerely, Roger
Hall, Ph. D. |
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