FAQ

You can submit a request for a consultation below with the contact form, or you can call 678-298-9707 to request an appointment. After that, you will be contacted for a brief, free phone consultation. If your needs match the services our clinic provides, you will be scheduled for a first appointment.

Initial sessions are typically 90-minute evaluations, where your individual needs and current symptoms will be assessed so that a treatment plan can be established. At the initial session, you will discuss what symptoms you've been struggling with, your treatment history, and what you hope to get out of treatment, in addition to discussing information about your life context, such as any ongoing medical problems, relationships, and social history. Prior to this appointment, you will be asked to fill out several forms, and these will also be reviewed in the first appointment. After 1-3 sessions spent working to understand your difficulties, our clinicians are usually able to provide an early idea of what course of treatment would likely be best.

Evidence based treatments are forms of psychotherapy that have been backed by scientific research. To be an evidence-based treatment, therapy must be tested in multiple systematic, rigorous scientific studies. A great deal of research goes into determining what treatments out there reliably help people improve. Clinicians at the Anxiety and Trauma Clinic of Atlanta believe that sticking with scientifically based treatments while offering heartfelt, compassionate psychotherapy is the best way to ensure high-quality care. Evidence based treatment is made for you if you are experiencing specific symptoms, distress, and/or functional impairment in your life, and you are hoping for a solution that will lead to noticeable improvement.

Clinicians at the Anxiety and Trauma Clinic of Atlanta specialize in cognitive-behavioral approaches that are targeted, skills-based, and usually short-term. That said, the length of treatment depends on a few factors. When treatment involves work on a single, specific problem with targeted treatment goals, psychotherapy is often quite short-term. Although treatment success cannot be guaranteed, many people find improvement with 16-20 sessions - sometimes much fewer. Sessions usually occur on a weekly basis over the span of a few months. Sessions may be 45 minutes long, 55 minutes long, or 90 minutes long, depending on the treatment you are receiving; most clients are scheduled for weekly 55 minute sessions. After a more intensive treatment phase, therapy often tapers down, with follow-up sessions to check in on your progress over time and to help you keep up the gains you make in treatment. There are times that there are many different, or complicated, treatment goals to target. This is often the case with BPD, interpersonal difficulties, substance use, and other more complex problems (e.g., multiple disorders, self-harm, treatment-resistant problems, very severe disorders), which may involve a longer-term treatment course. After the initial session, your clinician will be able to offer you a better idea of how long your treatment will likely take. You may need to negotiate this over time depending on how you are responding to the treatment and if you uncover more concerns you would like to address in treatment. Providing good psychotherapy means offering you what you need, no more and no less.

Not right now! When things started to improve in the pandemic, we asked our clients if they would like to return to in-person services, and turns out - people, by and large, preferred meeting online. This makes sense because: Our experience, and the research literature, both suggest that people usually get as much out of online sessions as they do in-person. People start feeling better just as much, just as fast. Telehealth is safer. The pandemic isn't really over, and in a way, it may never be. Many of our clients with more health vulnerabilities would prefer to prevent another potential source of exposure to COVID. Commutes are the worst. It can take as long to get to and from our clinic as the session itself, or longer if traffic is bad. This is usually pretty inconvenient, and more time in your car isn't exactly the best for your mental health. Plus, a therapy session cozy in your own bedroom usually feels a lot better than a therapy session after an hour of traffic. Our experience is that therapy that is done in your usual environment adds valuable information that would be missed in an office setting. A therapist can help you in the here-and-now of what is challenging on a daily basis in your environment. Last, telehealth has made therapy accessible for folks in rural areas, who have disabilities that make travel challenging, and even those who live in other states. For now, our clinic has chosen to has chosen to move to virtual therapy for the forseeable future. Telehealth just works.

Certain types of medication, such as antidepressants, can be combined with psychotherapy to enhance treatment outcomes. You may have already found benefit from medication or are working to find the right medication for you. If you do not want to be on medication, most people still benefit from therapy without it. You may consider starting with psychotherapy and testing how effective it is before you start a medication. Sometimes, effective psychotherapy can help you gain the skills toward weaning off of your medications, but this should be done under the guidance of a psychiatrist. Our clinicians do not prescribe medication; in the state of Georgia, psychologists and licensed counselors cannot prescribe medication. We are happy to work with you on finding a psychiatrist if you are interested in receiving both medication and psychotherapy.

Please see our fees and insurance page which details the applicable information in more detail.