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Psychological Services Available at TCCP
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We first want to thank you for considering TCCP for psychological services. The decision to seek professional help for your child is an important one and we hope to provide you with the information necessary to understand the counseling process.
People seek psychological services for many different reasons. By exploring emotions, behaviors and beliefs about oneself and the world, clients can develop more effective and adaptive styles of thinking, feeling and behaving. We know that people respond best to psychotherapy when they have a clear understanding of what they are about to undertake. This information has been prepared with that in mind. We certainly would like you to call or email us with any questions you might have.
If you have decided to seek services at TCCP, please go to the Contact Us page and press the Intake Information link to download a form you can complete and either email to us or bring with you to your first appointment.
Psychological Evaluations
Psychological evaluations are conducted for the purpose of answering specific questions regarding an individual's development, intellectual functioning, academic achievement, personality functioning, neurological functioning, and social and behavioral functioning. Evaluations may be conducted through interview, self report, or formalized and experimentally validated tests. Psychological evaluations are conducted to answer questions brought up by parents, the school, or the psychologist. Evaluations conducted at Tulsa Center for Child Psychology include:
· Developmental Evaluations to assess for possible Autism Spectrum Disorders or other developmental disorders;
· Intellectual Evaluations to determine a child’s current level of intellectual functioning;
· Academic Achievement Evaluations to determine if the child’s learning is commensurate with that predicted by their level of intellectual functioning:
· AD/HD evaluations
· Evaluations for emotional and behavioral disorders such as depression, anxiety, or problems with anger management or conflicts with authority figures.
Please contact us directly if you are uncertain whether the questions you are needing answered fall under one of these categories.
Child and Adolescent Therapies
Children and adolescents present with a wide variety of problems or struggles. These range from academic difficulties to developmental delays, problems with anxiety or feelings of depression, behavior problems to eating disorders, peer relations to family relations.
Addressing the range of problems with which children and adolescents can present requires a wide variety of techniques and methodologies. These may include assessments, traditional talking therapy, play therapy, group therapy, family therapy and parent counseling. At times referrals to other health care professionals may be indicated for medication, hearing, speech or language evaluations, or medical evaluations.
Therapy typically begins with an initial interview in which an preliminary understanding of the problems being experienced is developed. This may be followed by a more extensive evaluation that can include a thorough history of development, health, education, family and peer relationships. Behavior rating scales may be provided to gather information that is more specific from parents and teachers. Formal testing of intellectual functioning, academic progress, personality functioning, and specific symptom assessments such as depression or anxiety measures may follow. After the initial assessment, a treatment plan is developed in cooperation with the family and this plan may be modified during the course of treatment if appropriate.
Individual Therapies
Individual therapy with children and adolescents may take many different forms. It may involve play therapy with younger children where they reveal their conflicts and their attempts to deal with them to date. In play therapy, the therapist follows the child’s lead typically and gives verbal expression to what they observe in the child’s play and help them develop effective ways of dealing with these issues.
Therapy with older children and adolescents may look more like traditional verbal therapies where the individual is capable of expressing their concerns or difficulties and the therapist more directly helps them develop effective means of addressing these. In other situations therapy may be directed more toward supporting the child’s efforts to cope with difficult life changes such as illness, moves, divorce, or the death of someone close to them. In these situations, therapy may “simply” involve an objective listener reflecting back to them their reactions to this experience and guiding their efforts to rebuild their lives following these significant changes.
Group Therapy
Group therapy is typically a less intense and less expensive form of therapy that allows members to learn about themselves as they are reflected in their peers perceptions and reactions to them. Group Therapy may focus on specific psycho-educational activities such as anger management, assertiveness training, peer relationships, and so forth. Group sessions may be more process oriented in which the focus is more on the interactions among the group members and their emotional and behavioral responses to each other under the guidance of the group leader. Groups are lead by staff or practicum students, or both.
Family Therapy and Parent Counseling
Problems children are experiencing may reflect difficulties in the family setting. This does not imply that the parents are to blame for the child’s difficulties, but does imply that improvement in communication and interaction would benefit the entire family. In such situations, family therapy will be recommended.
In other situations, parents may feel like they are at a loss as to how to respond to their children’s behavior. In these situations, parents may be seen to strategize more effective means of addressing the problematic or confusing behaviors they are observing in their children. Again, this is not to assign blame but to bring into the family system the skills and techniques necessary to ensure the healthy development of their children
The specific therapies necessary to address the unique problems each family is experiencing prevents the use of “cookie-cutter” treatments. Your treatment plan will be developed taking these unique characteristics in consideration along with the use of those techniques found to be most effective with the problems being presented.
Court and Custody Evaluations
Although the therapists at TCCP work with family problems please make note that we do not testify in court regarding custody or divorce actions. Custody evaluations and expert testimony require a very specific procedure and relationship with the client and is very different from a therapeutic relationship. It is, in fact, unethical for us to move from a therapist’s role to one of advising the court regarding the fitness of a parent or the child’s needs concerning who would be the “best” parent. Should the need arise for this type of evaluation and testimony, we will be happy to refer you to independent psychologists we have found to be expert in this area of psychology.
Because of the great risk of malpractice suits, and because we do not want to participate in these cases, a minimum fee of $5000 per half day or less out of the office will be assessed should we be legally required to testify in any court proceeding. We do ask that you respect this professional boundary.
Referral to other Professionals
While the professionals working within TCCP can address most issues, there will be times when referral to other professionals is deemed to be in the child’s best interest. These would involve issues related to the problems the child is experiencing yet fall outside the realm of psychology. These would include the possible need for medication, specific non-psychological evaluations such as physicals, speech and language evaluations, hearing evaluations, or neurological evaluations by a physician. These referrals will be made in consultation with the parents and the child’s physician.
Should a situation arise in which the safety of the child is at risk, the staff of TCCP will assist you in selecting an appropriate hospital setting for your child. Should your child’s problems be so severe and debilitating that they are unable to benefit from outpatient counseling, referral to a more intensive level of treatment will be made, again in consultation with the family. The staff of TCCP is familiar with a number of programs, both in and out of Oklahoma, which may meet your needs.
The Nature of Therapy – Its Benefits and Risk
While therapists may employ different styles and techniques, the goal remains the same. Therapy is about change. All sessions involve ongoing verbal interaction. The degree of parental involvement in the session varies from situation to situation. Through interaction with the child and/or family, new ways to manage life stressors will be addressed.
Therapists do not make decisions for clients. Instead, they provide the assistance necessary that allows the individual to become more confident in their abilities to make healthy decisions for themselves, or their children.
While therapy has been proven quite beneficial in most instances, it does involve some risk. Exploring emotions can be painful. Learning that habitual ways of dealing with situations is not effective can be disheartening and discouraging. However, continuing to explore and address these issues typically brings about resolution and a significant sense of achievement.
Therapist Responsibilities
The therapist’s primary responsibilities are to assess your concerns and in consultation with you, to plan and execute an appropriate course of treatment in the most effective and efficient manner and least restrictive setting. It is also the therapist’s responsibility to address concerns regarding treatment or billing.
Client Responsibilities
Your responsibility is to be open to change. You will need to be active, open and honest during your sessions. Additional effort outside the therapy session is necessary for positive results. You will need to complete any assignments given by your therapist. This work may involve a review of session materials, development of self-awareness by completing certain tasks such as logs or journals, or other specific assignments. It will be important to be forthright in sharing concerns about therapy.
It is also your responsibility to be on time to sessions, to fulfill you financial commitments, and to notify the office in advance of any cancellations.
Student Services
TCCP is committed to the training and development of future psychologists. To this end, we are involved in both teaching and supervising graduate students from a number of universities in the Tulsa area. We serve as a practicum site for doctoral level students in the in Clinical Psychology Program at the University of Tulsa. You may be asked permission to allow a student to sit in or participate in your therapy. You are certainly entitled to decline this invitation if it would make you uncomfortable for any reason. We appreciate your allowing them to participate when feasible.
These students are also able to provide services on a limited basis to certain clients. This may involve conducting assessments or providing therapy. Students are closely supervised in any direct services they provide and there are no charges for their services.
We have found that most clients greatly enjoy getting to know the students and benefit from their unique contribution to the therapy.
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