Everyone goes through difficult times in their life when they might benefit from going to therapy. You might be struggling with upsetting thoughts, uncomfortable emotions, difficult memories, conflict with people in your life, or just having trouble getting things done.

We’re here to help when your usual coping strategies just aren’t cutting it any more. We can work on processing life experiences, developing healthy habits, building communication skills, problem solving, expressing your emotions in healthy ways, and more.

Beyond that, sometimes it’s just nice to have someone to talk to who isn’t involved in the rest of your life.

Just like adults, children can struggle with difficult emotions and challenging behaviors. Sometimes parents need support in helping their children through difficult times, and sometimes children need an extra trusted adult in their lives.

It may be that your child is struggling in school, anxious about friendships or being away from parents, in conflict with their siblings, or seeming extra moody. It may be that they went through a traumatic experience.

When you bring your child to therapy, we can work with them to help build new skills for regulation and communication, process emotions and experiences, and develop healthy habits. We can also help parents build new skills to better communicate with and support their children.

We think so, or we wouldn’t be working as therapists!

You don’t have to just take our word for it, though. The American Psychological Association (APA) stated in a 2012 press release that psychotherapy is effective for multiple behavioral health concerns across multiple groups of people, and often more effective than medical interventions for the same concerns. They also stated that people learn life skills in therapy, leading to improvements that last after treatment is over.

More recently, a 2022 paper published in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research reviewed 223 studies on the effectiveness of psychotherapy and found large positive effects on depression, anxiety, and other mental health outcomes.

However, therapy does take commitment and effort on your part, and it is always up to you to put in the work that makes therapy effective.

You and your therapist will develop treatment goals together and check in regularly about progress on achieving those goals. Your therapist may also use questionnaires to measure and track your symptoms.

While some clients may begin to see an effect after their first session, most clients will need to participate in several sessions before they start to notice changes. Many clients will see significant improvements in their symptoms by about three months in, or after ten or twelve therapy sessions.

If after several sessions you haven’t seen improvements, it’s a good idea to check in with your therapist. You can discuss what changes they’ve noticed and explore whether you will need a change in your treatment plan.

While a diagnosis is not required to provide therapy, most insurance companies require a diagnosis for billing of therapy services to “prove” that you qualify for the services. This means that if you choose to use your health insurance to pay for therapy, your therapist probably will need to diagnose you with a mental health condition.

A diagnosis shows that you are currently experiencing challenges that can be treated with therapy. Therapists are trained to accurately assess and diagnose mental health conditions across a range of severities, and ethical therapists will thoroughly assess symptoms before giving a diagnosis.

Your therapist should inform you of and provide you information about any diagnosis they give you.

The short answer is “It depends.”

The long answer is that how long you will be in therapy depends on many factors, such as your symptoms, your treatment goals, how frequently you attend sessions, and personal factors about you. Some people attend therapy sessions for just a few months, while others may continue therapy for years.

You and your therapist can decide together whether you have met your goals, and it is always your decision whether or not to continue with therapy.

At your first therapy session, called an “intake,” your therapist will talk with you about the concerns you bring to therapy and other details of your life in order to develop a treatment plan.

After the first session, your treatment plan will guide the focus future therapy sessions. For many adults and teens, therapy sessions consist primarily of talking with their therapist. Sessions may also include role playing situations, practicing skills clients are working on, or participating in other hands-on activities.

Sessions for children (and even some adults!) often include imaginative play, arts and crafts, and board or card games as a way to work on skills or process emotions.

You and your therapist will work together to develop a plan for sessions that suits you.

Each therapy session is typically 45-60 minutes long, with a 50-minute session considered “standard” in the industry. While sessions are typically scheduled for an hour, a 50-minute session allows your therapist to complete documentation at the end of the session, get a snack, or use the restroom before their next client.

Find the right therapist can be like shopping for shoes—it can take some trial and error.

You know you have found the right therapist when you feel comfortable talking with them and supported by them. The right therapist for you will be knowledgeable about the concerns you are bringing to therapy and willing to seek additional information on or refer out for concerns that arise outside of their area of expertise.

You and your therapist need not come from the same walk of life, but you deserve to feel like your therapist respects your history, identity, and beliefs.

While no therapist can guarantee the outcome of your treatment, you are most likely to be successful when you participate fully. This means actively working on the goals you and your therapist set and following through on tasks or homework you have been assigned outside of session.

While you are never obligated to tell your therapist everything, it also tends to help if you work on opening up about your thoughts, feelings, and experiences as you get to know your therapist.

Parent support is very important to their child’s progress in treatment.

Parents can support their children’s therapy by being available to participate in sessions when the therapist asks, helping their child complete assigned tasks outside of session, and respecting the privacy of their child’s discussions with their therapist.

Parents may also work with their child’s therapist on new skills to help support the growth their child is achieving in their sessions.

A therapist who is the right fit for you will not judge you for the challenges you are facing, even when those challenges are your own behaviors.

We know that people don’t come to therapy when everything in their lives is going right, so we expect you to be dealing with difficult problems. Many of us have also experienced some of the challenges that lead our clients to seek support.

Your Stepping Stones therapist will not prescribe you medication and will respect your autonomy in deciding whether or not to pursue medication options to treat mental health challenges.

At times, a therapist may recommend a client try medication to help decrease symptoms and refer them to a provider who can prescribe psychiatric medications, such as a psychiatrist (MD) or psychiatric nurse practitioner (ARNP).

Some symptoms can be greatly reduced by medication. However, many concerns are best treated by therapy alone or by a combination of therapy and medication.