Hey everybody! It's finally Friday and I'm about to hit the road a runnin' let the good times roll, roll, roll
Sean and I are gonna go out to dinner and I'm really excited. Yea!
So this is my to do of the day, and since many of you are new to my channel. Welcome, welcome, welcome!
When it's Friday, I'm on Facebook. I use a lot of alliteration here at KatiMorton.com so Facebook Fridays: F and F.
Website, Wednesdays. Twitter Thursdays. Tumblr Tuesdays.
Makes it easier to follow. Am I right?
I have 3 questions today as well as a journal topic that I put together from Pinterest.
So thanks Pinterest for all of your wonderful art therapy slash journal topic ideas.
They're amazing.
I tried to give us a well rounded group of questions today, so the first questions that I have says,
"Hey Kati, what does it mean when my coping mechanisms stop working? Am I burned out?"
Good question. Now this can happen for many various reasons.
The first and the most common being that things have changed.
We've been working ourselves. Give yourself a little credit. Pat yourself on the back.
You've been working really hard, so the coping skills that used to work in the past may not work anymore,
because things have changed.
Or we have grown up. We have tried different things, and other things are gonna work better.
And so that's the most common.
The second is that maybe you're not using them in the same way or early enough like you used to
so you may want to think about that first.
But my guess is that it's because things have changed
and sometimes when we're really stressed the things that used to help us all the time maybe don't help anymore.
So be open to trying new things, to finding out new coping skills. New tools we can put our toolbox to use later.
Because it's very normal for us to get so used to using this one, that it almost loses the effect.
So we have to kind of switch it up.
We want to have a bunch of different things that we can do,
so I would encourage you think about the ones that still work. Still use those.
And the ones that aren't working now, we're gonna put them on the back seat for awhile,
because we may want to bring them out later when some of the other ones we are using get tired for us and they don't do what they need to do.
But it's very common.
Don't think that you're burned out. Just think "well I"m changing, I'm working on myself. I'm doing great, so therefore I need some new coping skills for the new things that I'm working on."
Okay?
Now question number two:
"Hey Kati. I've recently started seeing a therapist that forces me to run a tab. She has stated that I don't pay her until she invoices me.
We have had four sessions at $180 each."
Whooo!
"And I have yet to receive an invoice, so I can pay her. I don't have insurance, so I'm paying out of pocket.
Last session I was going to ask about this and express my concerns, but before I could say anything
she said 'Thanks for not harassing me for not sending you an invoice.'
I'm scared that if I keep seeing her I'll end up for an invoice for thousands of dollars.
Which would be a hard hit on my bank account at one time.
Is this a normal practice? What are your thoughts? Thanks"
Now I thought this was a great question, because I haven't actually taken the time to talk with you all about payment.
What does it work, how does it work with a therapist? What does it look like?
Are there invoices? What are the rules? What are the regulations?
And everyone's experience, everyone's practice is different.
However, I'll just tell you what I do.
Now the average range of payment for a therapist in a city center, like I live in, ranges anywhere from $100 to $225 a session.
And everywhere in between. Some are a little more some are a little less.
There are clinics where you may pay $60, $50, $40 because those clinics are funded through donations,
because they're non-profit and then therapists like me, I get paid for my time but it keeps the cost low for you.
So there are a lot of different options out there, so as always I encourage any of you if you are concerned about
paying out of pocket, being able to afford therapy look into the options available in your area,
because there are a lot of different low cost sliding scale options out there.
Now, as far as running a tab I honestly have never heard of this. I've heard of this if they're billing insurance, and then we're going to wait to see what insurance pays.
And then you pay the extra.
I have done that before, however in my practice my patients pay at the end of every session.
Because no one wants to keep a running tab, and at the end of every month If they so desire,
if they have insurance. Because I don't accept insurance.
I'm just a one woman show and insurance requires a shit ton of paperwork.
Then I send them a monthly invoice that they can send, it's like a super bill, and they send that to their insurance. And they get paid out accordingly.
I would talk with the therapist about it. I know you said you were gonna bring it up
and then she was like "thanks so much for not blah blah blah"
But you can just say exactly what you said to me. There's nothing wrong with it.
Don't feel awkward talking about money with your therapist. This is part of the therapeutic relationship.
And she needs to be clear. And clearly she wasn't or you wouldn't be worried about this now. You know?
And it should be something that you can talk about. It should be in your paperwork, your intake paperwork, your informed consent.
Has to have all of that stuff, so my patients know cancellation policies, what my cost is per hour,
you know, if they aren't able to pay. They forget their checkbook or credit card or something how many weeks will I let them go
before I won't make appointments. There's all sorts of information there, because you have to be informed to consent to treatment.
Informed consent.
So I would check through your papers.
I would talk to her, because running a tab like that and four sessions.
I understand if it's monthly. If you want to do that and you're fine you can do a monthly thing.
But I've never heard of this. Like never.
And I even went through difference offices that I worked with and referred people to, and I've never heard of this.
It's usually you pay each session. Or you pay your co-pay before each session. Doesn't matter.
But yea I would talk to her and see if there's something else you can work out.
And just say I'd be more comfortable paying you at each visit, and hopefully she'll understand.
Just say it like you said it to me.
There's nothing wrong with it. Okay.
If any of you have experiences with this, let us know below, because this is a whole new world to me.
I've never heard of anybody doing this before.
Okay question number three:
"Hey Kati, I was wondering if you could have anxiety for your whole life?
The reason why I ask this is because I remember having some form ever since I was younger,
and never really had lived a life without it.
Is it possible to still have it but at lower level?"
It's definitely ... like all mental illness if they go untreated ...
we're not working on ourself, we're not doing anything to better ourselves.
We're just kind of like managing the symptoms on our own, we can have anxiety we can have depression for our whole lives.
We find in, just to give an example, the more with depression, the more episodes we have
so depressive episodes, when things get worse than they normally are
the more of those we have the more likely there are to be more.
So if we're having like panic attacks, the more likely it is for us to have more of them
And if it's something that we've never worked on then it can definitely linger and even happen with more frequency throughout our life
Now the question here she says "I remember having it as a child, and I may still have it but at lower level."
That's definitely possible.
A lot of time what we're working on in therapy never brings us out of it completely, 110%
but it gets us to a point where it doesn't affect our daily living.
That's always the goal.
With psychotherapy and psychiatry, if you're on any medication, we'd love to get you back to without any symptoms
at all of anxiety, depression, self harm urges, eating disorder, whatever it is
but what we're actually shooting for, because sometimes that's not possible
if we're predisposed if it's a chemical imbalance.
That means if we ever go off medication it may come back.
We're trying to get you to a level where it doesn't impede on your life,
and you're able to do whatever you want whenever you want without thinking about it.
Without worrying about it.
So it's definitely possible, but know that remission and getting well is something that can happen for all of us
It just takes a lot of work.
As we all have learned, therapy is a lot of hard work.
Working on ourself and gaining insight can be really difficult, but we can do it.
I know we can, and if you're willing to put the work in you won't have things for the rest of your life. Okay.
It's as simple or not simple as that.
Now journal topic: I saw this on Pinterest and I thought it was really really cool.
And the example they gave on Pinterest was can you draw a panic attack?
What do your panic attacks look like to you?
Now, not all of us have panic attacks, so I interpreted it as
Can you draw your struggle? What does your struggle look like? What's the biggest most often felt struggle?
What color would it be? How busy? Is it repetitive?
Is it saying things to you over and over?
It can help sometimes to visualize what it is we're struggling with.
And it can even help us potentially come up with some new coping skills or things we want to try
Or just give us some insight into what's really going on in our brain all day and what we're feeling
and why we are seeking help in the first place.
And sometimes it's just good to get that stuff out, to put it on paper
to like yea! That's it! That's what it looks like. That's what it feels like.
And then maybe we tear it up, we put it through the shredder, we burn it, but be safe about it.
I thought that could be helpful. So if that speaks to you do it this weekend.
Send me pictures on Twitter or Instagram. Tag me in them so I can see them.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone. I love you all.
I'll see you on Monday, and Tuesday I'll be on Tumblr. Bye!