Authored by Tyler Rogers
Finding a counselor that can help navigate life’s challenges can be an overwhelming process. There are many disciplines and practices committed to the helping profession, and as a client, it may be hard to know the differences in each and how to find a good fit. Scout has sought to define elements of our practice that make us who we are and we share them here in the hope that it can make it easier to know if we are the place to come for healing, growth and change in your life.
Consultation with Clinician of Choice in the Intake Process
We believe that the relationship one has with their clinician is vital to making change and progress in counseling. In fact, research shows that the therapy relationship is the strongest predictor of change in counseling. When someone reaches out to Scout, we provide free consultation over the phone with the clinician under consideration to give potential clients the opportunity to ask questions and get to know a clinician before ever coming in for an appointment. We want to make sure that clients feel connected and comfortable with the clinician they have chosen before ever setting foot in our office.
Outcome Based Approach
We believe that if a client is investing time and money into health and wellness, individually or relationally, they should get results. As stated above, we believe that those results begin with a good relationship. In our practice, we further this commitment to results through relationship by utilizing tools in every session to evaluate how clients believe they are progressing from session to session, as well as evaluate each session to ensure that our clients feel connected and understood, that the topics of session were relevant and important to the client, that our approach is appropriate and helpful, and that the overall outcome of the session was what our clients desire. Though we certainly are not perfect, we strive to be excellent in our work and value the feedback of our clients.
Appointment Availability
Our focus on being helpful and facilitating positive change for our clients, we hope for client growth that creates availability and space on our calendar for new clients. We handle our booking process in such a way to have continual availability to take on new clients, and strive to open session times for those who are seeking help to start within 1-2 week(s) of initial contact, excluding holidays and potential vacation time.
No Insurance
Scout’s therapeutic approach highly values personal investment and responsibility as key to growth and change. While insurance can serve as a buffer to financial stress, it can also buffer clients from a helpful amount of personal investment. Another factor to consider when using insurance to offset costs for counseling is that insurance and managed care require diagnostic labels. Diagnosis and labels may be a burden for some individuals' process towards healing and self-compassion. Scout believes that humans are complex and that managed care can create limits to the change our clients want. It’s also more important to us to spend our administrative time growing as clinicians and helping clients get the change they want to see versus spending additional time communicating with managed care or insurance companies.
Relationship and Systemic Focused
We believe that people and the issues they face do not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, we conceptualize and practice from a point of view that change in any one person’s life is not a simple matter of changing their specific symptoms, but helping them to look at the context of patterns and distress, and trying to bring deep, lasting growth, change, and healing. We do not want superficial change for our clients. We work to help clients go deeper than their current situation to seek to change in patterns of relating to self, others, and spaces in their lives.
Clinician Development
We believe that if we are in the business of personal growth and change, then we need to be growing and changing as well. We spend time as a team working hard to have a positive workplace culture and to learn new skills, approaches, and techniques that we can apply to our clients. We believe that we must always be focused on refining our craft and not becoming complacent with our work. We seek to invest in each other and ourselves so that we can be excellent in the work we do with our clients.
Multiple Clinicians to Address Issues Holistically and Collaboratively
We know that problems in many lives involve those close to us, most notably our spouses or children. We then strive to work effectively with our clients where individual and relationship counseling may be necessary. We desire to be a practice for your family or your relationship network, and work with spousal, parental, and even co-worker relationships in all that we do, and to work together to make sure goals of both the individual and relationship align.
Client Focused and Healing-Oriented
We believe that change, growth, and healing is priority one, not our fulfillment or successes as clinicians. While there is a fiduciary benefit for clinicians at Scout, we are most concerned that our clients get the changes they want, not the changes we may want. We believe our clients hold the greatest potential for change, and that our job is to facilitate the use of that potential in session. We also believe that our clients need to unlock that potential, not just coping and managing symptoms of distress.
Co-therapy Available for Couples
We know that for those who are seeking help for their relationship, it can be a challenge to find a clinician that may be a good fit for all parties in the relationships. Also, there may be extensive individual issues contributing to the relationship distress, hence, we can offer therapy for couples and relationships with additional clinicians to provide balance and additional resources to help those seeking relationship help get the most effective outcomes possible.
If Scout Counseling sounds like a good fit for you and what you are looking for in your counseling care, please reach out and begin the process of healing, growth and change! Contact us!