Author: Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

How to pay for psychotherapy

Affordable Therapy: 11 Ways to Pay for Therapy When You’re Broke

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Introduction Seeking out psychotherapy to address persisting emotional difficulties, especially when you have never had personal experience with it, is almost always a last resort.  Leaving aside unconscious factors captured by the term “resistance,” the cost of competent treatment remains one of the easiest excuses to cite when avoiding needed care.  While this list won’t help you address any negative feelings you have about therapy and/or what it costs, my hope is that it will: Help people who are ready for treatment and struggling with how they can afford it; and Gently take away poor excuses for avoiding something that is needed. Remember that therapists like to help. That’s how we got into this profession. Don’t let the cost get in the way of the help you need. If you’re willing to do some legwork, there’s a therapist out there for you.#mentalhealth#therapy pic.twitter.com/xTGVlbxrYX — Michael Kinsey, Ph.D. (@mindsplain) May 17, 2020 1. Ask for a Lower Fee and Present a Budget Many therapists will consult at no cost with prospective patients to determine whether the …

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Common Parenting Mistakes

6 Well-Intentioned Parenting Mistakes to Avoid

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Introduction Every parent makes mistakes with their kids.  Kids are resilient and in many ways built to survive parental error.  Almost all mistakes are forgivable–especially if they are recognized as mistakes.  As a psychotherapist, I have observed a strange paradox time and time again: some of the most pernicious parenting mistakes are the ones about which parents are certain are not mistakes.  That is to say, that these particular foibles contain three destructive elements: 1) The mistake is well intentioned and therefore is not recognized as harmful (and therefore may recur with high frequencies without the insensitivity being acknowledged); 2)The parent through superior power and intellect forces his/her conviction that the mistake is in fact beneficial to the child; and 3)The child believes that any negative feelings, misgivings, or correct intuitions he/she has about the behavior/attitude in questions are in fact proof of the child’s defectivity.   “some day, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well-considered, and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of child’s spirit; for …

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Getting reimbursed for therapy

Out-of-Network Insurance Benefits: A Guide to Getting Reimbursed for Psychotherapy

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Introduction: I hear a lot of people (legitimately) complain about the cost of psychotherapy.  However, there is a subset of these folks that have great insurance that allows them to be either partially or fully reimbursed for sessions outside their network.  Because the paperwork can be a deterrent to seeking therapy, and because it can simply be confusing, I decided to create an informational post about how to submit paperwork for out-of-network claims with a focus on psychotherapy.  By the end of this post, you should have the information you need to bill your insurance company for your psychotherapy.  Any feedback or questions would be of great help to make this the most user-friendly and informative content on the topic out there. Be sure to read or skim all the way to the end for the additional resources. Getting Started: As a first step, the name and address of your insurance’s claims department must be printed or typed into the upper right hand corner of the CMS-1500.  The example below is the address for medicare/medicaid …

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Adolf The Cat | Trauma | PTSD

Adolf the Cat: A Story About Trauma

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: “Something Wicked This Way Comes: Trauma, Dissociation, and Conflict: The Space Where Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience Overlap” by Philip Bromberg, a leading figure in the world of trauma and psychoanalysis.  I share it to add texture and depth to the term trauma–a term often tossed around without precision or a shared understanding.  I’ll present some takeaways at the end of the post.  However, the story stands alone as a parable about trauma. When I was a kid, an endless source of fascination was looking out of my bedroom window at our backyard garden to silently observe the mysterious interactions between the animals, birds, trees, bushes and flowers.  But like the Garden of Eden, it received periodic visits from an infamous inhabitant of our neighborhood: A cat who was referred to by everyone in the vicinity as Adolf (I was a World War II kid). Adolf was an aggressive, predatory, seemingly fearless animal, whose viciousness and mean-temperedness terrorized the other neighborhood cats as well as most of …

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panic attacks and existential anxieties

6 Existential Anxieties That Could Be the Cause of Your Panic Attacks

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Panic attacks are among the most common and most distressing symptoms I see as a therapist.  Not only do people encounter some of their most primitive existential fears, such as feeling like they are dying or going crazy, panic sufferers also have to deal with the repetitive (and often unpredictable) nature of panic, and the fact that others cannot fully appreciate the intensity of the experience. Search the web and you’ll find a ton of strategies to deal with panic attacks.  In my opinion, very few (none in fact that I have found) adequately address different types of panic attacks.  While I do not explicitly address tips for dealing with panic here, I believe we can optimize our coping strategies for anxiety attacks by first identifying what the panic is and what it is signifying.  I identify six types of panic that I have observed in clinical practice below. I do not accept that panic attacks “come out of nowhere.” While cues may not be easily identifiable, experience has taught me that there is ALWAYS …

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The “No” Quadrant: When To Say “No” and Maintain Healthy Boundaries

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

To be healthy in our emotional life we need good boundaries.  What does it mean to have good boundaries? In a basic sense, good boundaries means being able to define yourself and your values as distinct and separate from those of others.  Defining ourselves is important because we must first be separate to fully experience and benefit closeness to others. In all relationships we need to be able to protect our interests, take care of others without excessive sacrificing of our needs, and maintain the freedom to say no.  These abilities correlate highly with self-confidence, self-esteem, and healthy intimate connections with others. Good boundaries are incompatible with two of the most common afflictions of modern society, anxiety and depression. Saying no is a critical aspect of boundary-setting, as denying others’ requests is essential to freedom. Without freedom, relationships begin to feel like servitude. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is an approach to treating a condition notorious for both poor boundaries and extreme states of distress.  Marsha Linehan, the creator and matriarch of DBT, provides a …

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Parenting Advice: Practical Wisdom on How to Approach a Temper Tantrum

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Many years ago at a training for how to de-escalate emotionally disturbed teenagers, my instructor illustrated the concepts of negative and positive reinforcement with the following example: You take your child to the grocery store.  After gathering all your items, your three-year-old inquires “Mom, can I have this candy bar?” “No Honey, I already got you those cookies you wanted, remember?” “But I want this!” The exchange continues until your child is crying and screaming.  Just before you complete your errand and move on to the next item on an impossibly long list of chores, this embarrassing scene arises.  You can feel the eyes of other customers bearing down on you, judging you and your impotent parenting.   With things to do and resentful glares upon you, you grab the candy bar with an indignant huff from your child’s hand and present it to the cashier.   “And this too,” you utter in defeat.   Your child’s wailing ceases and you are back on schedule–all for a paltry sum of a buck fifty. In this episode, both you …

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Putting The Pieces Back Together: 5 Tips On Mending A Broken Heart

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Breaking up with a romantic partner is pure agony.  While it’s worse to be dumped, ending a longterm relationship is no picnic either.  In both cases, our brains and bodies experience the same kinds of effects that folks who are depressed and recovering from addiction feel.  The harsh reality is dealing with loss in any area of life takes time and there is no quick and easy way out. Fortunately, we don’t have to grieve forever, and if we approach the breakup with the right mindset, we emerge from the darkness of loss a more well-rounded person.  Five things that can minimize damage and promote healing are the following: 1. Practice acceptance; 2. Do damage control; 3. Take inventory; 4. Plant a seed; and 5. Befriend the future.   Practice Acceptance: The shortest way out of the pain of breakup is to find a way to reconcile, right?  In most cases, chasing the urge to get back together with your ex simply delays the inevitable.  For every bushel of breakups, only a small handful are …

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What the Heck Is a …? A Guide to the Most Common Mental Health Professions

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Once you have had some experience working with different professionals within the field of mental health, differences between each discipline’s values, style, approach, and skillset can be easy to detect.  However, if you are reaching out to a mental health professional for help for the first time, it can be overwhelming to differentiate between the different types of professionals, who may be best equipped to help you, and what practitioner will offer the treatment you have in mind.   I’ve provided an editorialized guide to the most common professions within the field to mental health, along with some resources that provide a little less opinion. Psychiatrist Degrees: Medical Doctor (M.D.), Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.) Years of Training: 7+ Description: Psychiatrists are usually placed at the top of the mental health hierarchy because they are the only clinicians in the world of mental health that are medical doctors (although, they are not necessarily the only mental health practitioners that can prescribe medication).  All psychiatrists are trained first as doctors (usually 3 years) before applying to obtain specialized …

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Stop Passive Aggressive People

6 Tips to Crush Passive Aggressive Behavior

Published by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Passive Aggression Passive aggression is difficult to define, but tends to be unmistakable when we encounter it.  It can take many forms: a backhanded compliment, an act of martyrdom, a plaintive remark that’s “not about you” (but almost certainly is).  Even more frustrating are more ambiguous and disavowed actions that seem to be about something bigger than the issue at hand. Showing emotional distance, “forgetting” to do something important, not responding to a text message, or simply expressing small grievances when a bigger complaint is the elephant in the room. So what makes the passive aggressive behavior we receive so frustrating?  I believe the attack in passive aggression to be a combination of abandoning and “gaslighting” (i.e., making someone doubt the validity of their own thoughts, feelings, and/or perceptions).  We’ve all had the experience of impotently asking an passive-aggressive offender the naive question “What’s wrong?” The inevitable reply? “Nothing.” The perpetrator of passive aggression delights in our anxious feeling that something is off, our powerlessness in resolving the main issue, and the needy persistence with …

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