Understandably, starting therapy for the first time or starting with a new therapist can be a daunting process. I’ve been there, but I promise that making people feel comfortable and cared for while opening up about difficult and deeply personal topics is my specialty.  I offer a complimentary first 15-minute session before we get started. This is an opportunity for us to discuss what you are hoping to get out of testing, for me to ensure that your needs are a good fit with my specialties and areas of expertise, and for you to ask any questions you may have about the therapeutic process. Reach out today to take the next step towards alleviating your symptoms and leading a more fulfilling life full of moments that make you realize, “This is what us thriving looks like.”

Whether you are seeking dating, premarital, or marriage counseling, my specialty is couples who feel that they need help with their communication. To work on this, we will focus heavily on emotions. After all, emotions are communication. They’re messages we’re sending ourselves. In turn, our emotions determine how we communicate with others. When we consider your interpersonal communication as a couple, we’ll identify the stumbling blocks that our emotions cause in thought patterns and interpretation. By analyzing the source, the sender, the channel (where did the information get it from), and the receiver (the mood, etc. of the person receiving it) we can understand how our partner intends their message to be received versus how we are perceiving it. We will work to identify your and your partner’s values as well as your individual and relational strengths, which we will use to unify and improve your areas of growth.

I know how hard it can be to take the first step and reach out for therapy, so I pride myself on beginning with new clients as soon as possible. This helps capitalize on the momentum and motivation you are experiencing, and allows us to start finding solutions and alleviating your symptoms at the earliest possible date.

I devote Mondays – Wednesdays to virtual therapy (9am-5pm) and Thursdays & Fridays to psychological testing. When I don’t have an assessment booked, I offer therapy on Thursday’s and Friday’s as well. I offer a premium rate for after hours and weekend appointments. Some of my patients prefer weekly sessions at one reliable time each week. Others have alternating schedules and prefer to book the week ahead at the end of each session. Either is fine with me, just let me know your scheduling preference.

At the moment, all my clients are virtual – we work together using SimplePractice’s HIPAA-compliant video platform. This offers convenience of therapy fitting in amongst busy schedules without planning and allotting time for commutes, parking, etc. If you are interested in incorporating in-person, we can discuss post-summer options or I can refer you to exclusively in-person clinicians.

My fee is $295 for individual therapy and $345 for couples therapy. These rates are based on the years of generalist education and specialist  training I have completed and the continued education and training I engage in. This ensures that I am prepared to pull from a wide variety of modalities to create a unique, personalized therapy for each patient based on their individual needs. There is no “one size fits all” mode of therapy. You’re a unique person with your own experiences and needs, so your therapy should be an adaptable and empowering approach that we collaborate on together.

I don’t accept insurance but I do provide superbills for you to submit to your insurance for reimbursement. If you’re curious what that means, click here for an example of a Superbill: https://support.simplepractice.com/hc/article_attachments/360091826332/superbill.simplepractice.superbill.png. I’ve had great success with patients getting reimbursed (many insurances, such as PPO’s, cover all or a significant portion of therapy and assessment post-deductible), but can never 100% guarantee this as insurance policies are ever-changing and each insurance company has different policies. If you’d like your insurance to cover your sessions, ask them if they reimburse/offer a co-pay for “out-of-network providers” (OON). Your OON benefits may be the same/close to your in-network (INN) benefits. Please call your insurance provider to learn about your out-of-network services eligibility prior to our consultation – or, you can use this link to estimate your OON coverage based on your insurance provider: https://calculator.meetnirvana.com/  

Great question! This is a topic I am passionate about, so if you are interested in learning the in’s and out’s of insurance within the world of psychology in the United States, please feel free to read on. Pursuing an in-network provider often entails many months of waiting to be matched with a therapist with openings for a particular insurance. In contrast, when I am accepting new clients, I offer sessions the very next week. It can be hard to motivate yourself to take the first step in pursuing therapy, so having months go by while you wait to be assigned a therapist who may or may not match your needs (let alone having extensive experience or expertise in them) can truly stall your progress.  Unfortunately, these issues are nothing new. In an academic article from 1999, Glosoff et al. explain: “Typical complaints expressed by mental health clinicians related to managed care arrangements include time limits or caps placed on the number of sessions approved, increased paperwork, decreased flexibility in treatment planning, dealing with the gatekeeper system, and the lack of qualified personnel acting as gatekeepers” (Newman & Bricklin, 1991).

When a therapist is on an insurance panel, the insurance company decides what your therapy will look like. They dictate how long your appointments will be, how often you can receive treatment, how long you can work with me for, and when they will simply cease paying for therapy (e.g.: after 10-15 sessions). I wholeheartedly disagree with a third-party determining this. I believe in empowering my clients to collaborate with me to determine what therapy will look like for them. I provide therapy for the duration of time needed to accomplish the treatment goals you set. Sometimes, this is a few weeks for acute issues. Sometimes, it’s much longer for more chronic, prominent, and intense issues or diagnoses. Insurance companies also insist upon certain types of psychological diagnoses to justify “medical necessity” for treatment. There are many types of issues that they do not deem worthy of therapy, so a patient can have had numerous therapy sessions before learning that their situation does not merit reimbursement from their insurance’s new policies. 

I also care deeply about protecting your confidentiality, as is my ethical duty as a psychologist. If we go directly through your insurance, then your insurance company can request all your private therapy notes, which means I can no longer ensure your privacy. Instead, I provide a safe, welcoming, space in which my patients can explore any topic, knowing that their records are held confidential with no exceptions other than what is required of me by law (a court order or the safety concerns we will review during your first session). Taking insurance presents ethical dilemmas as psychologists attempt to balance their obligations to their clients as well as to insurance companies.

Providing you with superbills that your insurance can reimburse you for removes these issues. If your insurance does not cover out-of-network therapy, I am happy to provide you with other options including unaffiliated third-party companies that can resolve your reimbursement by completing your out-of-network billing for you. Not taking insurance saves me an immense amount of time, which I devote to my focus: taking care of you, rather than filing paperwork and chasing down money from a claim.

The standard therapy schedule is once weekly. More seldom than that leads to therapy involving a great deal of “catch up” rather than progress. It is also more challenging to make therapeutic progress with appointments every-other-week since it is harder to track changes in symptomology. Some clients prefer to meet more frequently at the start of therapy to “get the ball rolling” in the initial stages, when they are contextualizing their symptoms and learning behavioral strategies to alleviate them. My goal is that, as progress is made over time, you will be able to transition to every-other-week sessions, then monthly, and then only occasional check-in’s before terminating therapy when it is no longer needed for you to thrive.

Yes, because I am licensed in California, you must be located here in order to receive therapy from me. If you travel or are out of the state for short periods of time, we may well be able to continue teletherapy, but that will depend on the laws of the state/country you will be visiting. If you let me know of intended travels, I’ll check their regulations to see if we have the option of continuing therapy while you are outside of California.

Anxiety can make us feel stuck in a pattern of worry. It makes us overestimate the problem and underestimate our ability to handle it. We can feel paralyzed by repetitive thoughts that cycle through the same fears, making us feel unable to move forward.

“What if I can’t manage it?” “What if I’m not enjoying life as much as other people?” “What if this ends our friendship?” “Did they judge me for that?”

Anxiety disorders can cause many different physical illnesses and ailments, but they deserve treatment in the same manner. Just as we can’t reset a broken bone ourselves, we can’t simply stop feeling anxious. This takes skill, training, and practice. The techniques you will learn in therapy will help you learn how to identify the thought distortion behind your anxious thoughts, stop overthinking and over-analysis in its tracks, and replace them with a rational, calming, more realistic alternative.

Anxiety and depressive disorders can also make it incredibly difficult to care for ourselves. Together, we will identify your strengths and utilize them to help you develop a more caring attitude towards yourself emotionally and physically. This will include your thoughts and making space for self-care. After all, self-care rituals are like magic spells that rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit.

There is a belief in contemporary modalities informed by Jungian theory that we have four voices inside us. The first key is to learn to recognize which internal voice is dominating your internal monologue. Often, this is our internal critic. Then, we learn how to take control back. We often can’t control the automatic thoughts that pop into our head. We can, however, control which ones we give attention to. Which ones we challenge or ignore. And which ones we let grow into patterns of thought.

I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s talk!

therapy@drshannonthomas.com