FAQ

General Questions

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General Questions

What’s the difference between coaching/consultation and individual psychotherapy?

The term individual psychotherapy refers to the treatment of psychological disorders and involves one (or more) of the following:

  1. Regular contact with ongoing assessment of individual needs and persistence of symptoms.
  2. The establishment of a therapeutic relationship that allows for both trust, resistances, and transference to develop over time in order to  make them subject to insight and thus reduce or eliminate distressing problems in the client’s (internal and external) life.
  3. The exploration of unconscious motivations through the emergence of strong emotions and the interpretation of internal conflicts.

Coaching, or consulting, focuses on the conscious goals of the client, and involves the provision of strategies, skills, recommendations, and other practical measures informed by Dr. Kinsey’s expertise in human behavior and the conditions that lead to optimized performance.  It may involve recommendations for individual psychotherapy, but does not aim to alleviate symptoms associated with mental illness.

Will my insurance pay for your services?

Of the services listed above, only individual psychotherapy sessions may be submitted to insurance companies for reimbursement.  Whether or not insurance covers psychotherapy typically depends on a few factors. 

  1. Your plan with your insurance carrier reimburses for out of network services.
  2. You have a clinical disorder for which psychotherapy is an appropriate treatment.
  3. You have met your deductible, psychotherapy remains an approved treatment, and you have submitted claims that are accurate and complete.

Insurance companies and plans vary in both the percentage and total amount per calendar year that they will cover.  It is important to determine what these limits are with your insurance carrier when deciding if and how frequently you will commit to psychotherapy based on your budget.  Many people are pleasantly surprised by how much their plans cover.

Dr. Kinsey is an “in-network” provider for a select number of university health plans.  If you have coverage by one of these plans, Dr. Kinsey’s services are often highly affordable.

Which service is right for me?

Individuals living outside of New York state are able to access Dr. Kinsey’s expertise by way of remote coaching sessions.  During these 50 minute sessions, Dr. Kinsey will familiarize himself with your reasons for reaching out and assess your current needs.  By the end of this coaching/consultation session, Dr. Kinsey will provide you with a clear summary of the difficulties you face and provide several recommendations of strategies and/or types of services to seek out locally if he believes your problems to be of clinical significance.  Follow-up coaching sessions can be continued at regular intervals as long as they provide meaningful, valuable, and actionable results for non-clinical challenges. 

Residents of New York state (or those living in the tri-state area who can commute into New York City) can similarly avail themselves of a consultation session (either in person or remotely) with Dr. Kinsey to obtain a rich assessment of current needs, a set of recommendations for future care, and strategies to help alleviate any acute concerns.  If it is determined that it would be of benefit to continue regular sessions of either individual psychotherapy or coaching, clients may decide to set up recurring appointments with Dr. Kinsey.

Why is psychotherapy so expensive?

While many who are contemplating therapy for the first time have a difficult time seeing the return on investment in good psychotherapy, most clients, once engaged with a good therapist, do not question the value of what they receive.  If you are someone who does not question the value of psychotherapy but are curious about how psychologists/psychotherapists set their fee, a list of factors is provided below. 

  1. Cost of obtaining the necessary training in order to help people make meaningful changes in their lives.
  2. Cost of operating and cost of living in New York City (or other city of practice).
  3. Median fee charged by therapists in New York City (or other area of practice).
  4. Insurance companies.
  5. Demand for a specific therapist’s services.
  6. The value that the therapist believes they provide.

When can I book an appointment?

Dr. Kinsey is currently accepting clients on Wednesdays and Fridays. 
Wednesdays are reserved for clients outside of the New York City area who wish to work with Dr. Kinsey remotely.

Wednesday (online appointments only): 8AM – 10AM & 2 PM – 5PM (EST)

Friday: 9AM – 6PM EST

What is Dr. Kinsey’s specialty?

Dr. Kinsey is an expert on the dynamics of personality.  He has developed a reputation for quick and accurate formulations of his clients’ core conflicts and sources of suffering.  While Dr. Kinsey workes extensively with personality disorders, he works with all types of mental illnesses as well as everyday struggles, working intimately with clients to determine how their goals, aspirations, wishes, and repetitive suffering stems from clashes between their character and the realities of everyday life.  Under these conditions of analysis, Dr. Kinsey has helped his patients develop their own unique solutions to chronic psychological problems.

Is speaking remotely as helpful as speaking in person?

Clients report obtaining benefits from both remote and in-person psychotherapy/coaching.  Some report a strong preference for remote communication because it allows for a freer expression of thoughts, feelings, and intimate life details.  Others find it more comforting to be in the physical presence of their therapist, creating a more intimate and personal bond. 

From the therapist’s perspective, nearly all of the same data used to create formulations and interventions are present in both modes communication.  When remote communication fails to adequately express an important signal for the therapist to recognize, it is almost always detectable through tone, prosody, slips of the tongue, and/or word choice, etc.  This is to say, if a therapeutic relationship can be formed, the important aspects of the client’s inner life will inevitably be communicated.  Dr. Kinsey believes that both forms of psychotherapy can be extremely helpful.  However, Dr. Kinsey does request that people who are able to be seen in person come in to see him.  The reason for this has nothing to do with the superiority of in-person treatment.  In person care is preferred in these instances due to risk-management issues as well as leveraging the client’s efforts to commute in order to enhance receptivity to therapeutic change.

Does Dr. Kinsey do speaking engagements?

Yes. You can book him using the form on our contact page. Please specify in your message and include the time, date and relevant details.

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Is Dr. Kinsey available for interviews?

Yes. Send a request via our contact page. If you want to feature him in an article, interview or podcast please specify in your message and include the time, date and relevant details.