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FAQs -
New to Eating Disorder Recovery
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Thursday, 02 July 2009 21:40 |
What is the difference between a consultation and a psychotherapy appointment?
by Joanna Poppink, LMFT
A consultation is a time limited experience with Joanna where you provide specific information about yourself and your situation so Joanna can give you her opinion or perspective on your possible options. You use her consultation services to learn more about eating disorder recovery exercises and how to apply them and integrate them into your life.
A first brief consultation occurs over the phone at no charge.
Later consultations occur Joanna's Los Angeles office or on Skype video and are billed at her normal fee. Payments can be made via check or paypal.
If you are considering making an appointment with Joanna to do eating disorder recovery work, first you call
(310) 474-4165 or email
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. You and Joanna will schedule a time for a telephone consultation that can be from 5 to 20 minutes. During that free consultation you describe what is troubling you. You may talk about your eating disorder or the eating disorder of someone in your family. Joanna will help lead you, if necessary, into describing a few details of your experience and what you have done or are doing so far to address the situation. She will listen to what you have found helpful or not helpful. Then she will ask you questions that are designed to clarify your situation.
If you are struggling with any issues related to eating disorders, yours or that of another person, you may and want a more lengthy discussion with Joanna. In order to explore more deeply what your best course of action might be you would make an appointment for an in person session in her office or a Skype video appointment.
If Joanna believes she can offer you some useful information or perhaps help you rally your own thoughts and feelings to help you find a promising therapeutic path that suits your situation you may schedule one or perhaps two additional consultations.
At the close of your consultation/s Joanna will do her best to provide you with recommendations that can vary. She may refer you to a private psychotherapist or a clinic or an in-patient treatment center. She may refer you to a parenting class or to a support group or to a 12 step program. She may determine that what you are describing may not be an eating disorder but be an indication of some other issue that needs to be addressed. If this is the case she will make a different kind of referral suggestion.
If during the consultation you feel you would like to work with Joanna and she believes you qualify for her psychotherapy practice you would make a first appointment to meet in person at her office for psychotherapy.
You may be reading Joanna's book, Healing Your Hungry Heart, and want to consult with her on your experiences in working through HHH exercises. If so you can set up consultation appointments for in person or Skype video meetings. These consults are like private workshops for one based on the theme you are exploring in the book or in a particular chapter.
While a consultation can sometimes feel and be therapeutic, it is not psychotherapy.
You may have a psychotherapist you meet with regularly yet you and your therapist decide that you would benefit from consultations with an eating disorder specialist. If that’s the case, then you can make consultation appointments with Joanna that are designed to teach you how to develop and integrate eating disorder recovery methods into your ongoing psychotherapy work.
A regular psychotherapy appointment with Joanna is part of a long term commitment to ongoing psychotherapeutic work. Joanna is accessible to you and is an available resource should you need more time and attention for increased or extra sessions or emergency support. In psychotherapy, any topic, feeling or experience you choose to bring up or that spontaneously emerges determines the content for the appointment. Together, in secure privacy, you experience your own feelings and thoughts coming together in the presence of someone who is listening deeply to what you express and what you may convey without knowing. Bringing those three elements together can create greater clarity for your experience and more internal unity in your psyche.
The consultation is designed to help you find your starting place for healing or support you as you proceed on your recovery path. Consultations can lead you to your psychological challenges and indicate possible methods to address them. Consultations are far more limited in scope than ongoing psychotherapy. However, consultation appointments may lead you to the deeper work of psychotherapy.
The psychotherapy appointment is where the healing work gets done and your psychotherapist is available to you for emotional emergencies and detailed fluctuations in your healing experience. Consultations appointments can provide clarity to your existing issues and indicate helpful options.
A series of consultations can be like a workshop experience for one. You and Joanna decide in advance the time frame that is best for your situation, e.g. once, six weeks, alternate weeks for three months, etc.
Psychotherapy has an open ended time frame and can proceed for months or years as you work toward solid and lasting recovery.
To ask Joanna brief question go to: Twitter.com/JoannaPoppink or to https://www.facebook.com/joanna.poppink.
For more information about Joanna’s work, either consultations or psychotherapy, please register on her site: http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.com and go to the FAQ section.
To schedule a free phone consultation, call (310) 474-4165 or e-mail
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Joanna Poppink, MFT
Los Angeles psychotherapist
10573 West Pico Blvd. #20
Los Angeles, CA 90064
http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.com
author: Healing Your Hungry Heart
08/11 Conari Press http://amzn.to/grcDfG
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(310) 474-4165
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 April 2011 12:54 |
