Rates vary based on clinician and range from $150- $225 for 45-minute sessions for one-day-a-week therapy. We sometimes reduce fees for those who attend sessions more than once a week.
Couples sessions range from $175-$225 for a 45-minute session.
We each reserve part of their practice for clients whose financial situations require a reduced fee. However, our lowest sliding scale rate is $100 per session, and is based on availability.
Psychotherapy can be expensive!
We do have some sliding scale spots open, but they are limited. If we don’t have any openings, then we will try to ask other colleagues to see if anyone else is available that we think would be a good match for you and has sliding scale openings. However, most private practice therapists will rarely be able to have a sliding scale below $50-$60 per session.
In that case, it may be a better option to find services at a low-fee clinic or become a control case for a psychoanalyst-in-training. Here are a few options to check out:
Low/No Fee Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Clinics
- Valley Community Counseling Center
- Rose City Counseling Center
- Wright Institute Los Angeles
- Saturday Center for Psychotherapy (most expensive option on the list)
- LA LGBT Center
- Limit to only 6 sessions
- Airport Marina Counseling Services
- Psychodynamic therapy specific to LGBTQIA+ clients within the LGBTQIA Affirmative Therapy CEnter
- Colors LGBTQ Youth Counseling Services
- FREE ongoing therapy for LGBTQ youth (25 and younger) and their families
- AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA)
No. We are out-of-network (OON) provider with insurance companies. This allows us to spend our emotional time and labor focusing on our patients rather than paperwork and dealing with insurance companies.
Many insurance companies offer reimbursement for an OON provider. We can provide a “superbill” or monthly invoice to send to your insurance company for reimbursement. To find out what the reimbursement will be for your budgeting purposes, you should ask your insurance company the following questions:
- What is my OON deductible?
- How many sessions per year are covered?
- What is the reimbursement amount per therapy session for an OON provider?
- What is the maximum allowable amount for the procedure code (CPT code) 90834?
- Is prior approval required by a primary care doctor?
Once you have all that information, you may have to do some math to figure out budgeting. Here is an example to help you figure out your costs:
Let’s say your In Network Deductible is $1,200 and your Out of Network Deductive is $5,000. This means that your insurance would start paying for therapy after you had already paid $1,200 for an in network provider and $5,000 for an OON provider… or so you would think! This is where it gets tricky!
Let’s say that the insurance has a maximum allowable amount for the CPT code 90834 (a 45-minute psychotherapy session) of $60 and they pay 40% for an OON provider.
- That means that would pay 40% of $60 or $24. And then would count the other 60% ($36) towards your deductible.
- But if the OON provider is charging $100 (just to make the math easier), you would be paying that whole $100 until the OON deductible is met.
- If you had no other OON expenses other than therapy, you would reach the $5,000 OON deductible only after you had had over 83 sessions ($5,000 OON deductible/$60 per session counted towards the OON deductible).
- But if you paid for all 83 sessions at the “full” fee of $100, you wouldn’t reach the $5,000 OON deductible until you had paid $8,300 for therapy. That’s quite a bit more than $5,000!
- If you were attending sessions only once a week, you would never reach the OON deductible to even be able to use your OON benefits in this scenario.
- Even after you reach the deductible, they would only pay 40% of the maximum allowable amount, not the therapist’s actual fee.
The insurance company will gain the right to review your file as they are paying for it, at least in part. If you are not using insurance, your treatment is fully yours and your chart remains completely confidential (within other limits of confidentiality, such as a court order). In addition, your insurance will not be able to restrict the number of sessions.
Payment is always due on the day of your session. We accept all major credit cards and take checks for in-person sessions only.
Yes!
For those requiring a letter for gender confirming surgery, most patients can get a letter within one session.
For those dealing with severe impairment due to a mental health condition, we may recommend several sessions or ongoing therapy in order to help prepare you for surgery so that you can have a better outcome. For example, if you are a transgender person who is struggling with activities of daily living, like bathing, we will work with you to be able to find ways to deal with that to avoid post-operative infections. Our intention is not to gatekeep, but rather to ensure that even those with severe mental illness are able to have a successful surgery and a minimally painful (physically and emotionally) recovery. This is a rare situation, but everyone we have worked with this way was grateful for the extra support in their gender confirming surgery process as they often have been refused by other therapists.
We work with adolescents aged 14 and up and adults and couples of all ages.
Individual sessions are 45-minutes long. Couples sessions may be longer depending on the clinician you work with.
Yes, we work on Saturdays and we see patients on evenings depending on availability.
Reach out to the clinician that you are most interested in working with to schedule your first appointment. Ideally, the time you agree on will stay the same each week.
We offer sessions at once per week at a minimum. We find that every other week doesn’t allow for the therapeutic relationship to gain enough traction for real change and growth. Many patients prefer multiple times a week. This can be due to being in a difficult stage of life and needing more containment, or needing more time/space to do depth work. It isn’t an indication that someone is "sicker" as many people may assume, but that they are more available to working through old wounds.
Sadly, it’s impossible to estimate how many sessions you will need as everyone is different in terms of speed of progress and their ultimate goals of treatment.
As the kind of therapy that we do is more about inner growth rather than symptom reduction, it is not uncommon for patients to stay in treatment for years.
We require 48 hours notice for canceling an appointment. We have reserved this time in my schedule for you and generally cannot fill it without sufficient notice. We expect you to do the same.
Yes. There is lots of peer reviewed evidence to support psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Most patients report feeling a greater sense of wellbeing, ability to have intimate relationships, and more resilience. The patients that get the most out of it are those who are invested and engaged in the process, those who have curiosity about their minds, and are open to change.
However, there is no guarantee that it will be the right type of therapy for you and your journey. If your therapist determines that a different type of therapy, a different therapist, or even another healing treatment (like psychiatry, registered dietitian, etc.) may be a better option or a good supplement to our therapy, we won’t hesitate to make the referral.
That depends on how much you bring your mother up. She (if those are her pronouns) may be quite important to you or caused you a lot of pain, in which case we may end up talking about her more often. There may be others in your history or even nowadays that are more important relationships than your mother. We will follow your lead about who is important for your development and growth.
We highly doubt it! I actually find that the opposite happens. As we get to know each other more and you feel safer sharing about more vulnerable parts of yourself, there is an expansiveness to the topics available to talk about.
None of us are medical doctors. Only a medical doctor, such as a psychiatrist, can prescribe medication. A psychologist or marriage and family therapist cannot. If you believe medication may benefit you and you are interested in trying medications, we are happy to give referrals.
Yes! Confidentiality is a cornerstone of any therapy. Otherwise, people wouldn’t be willing to share their inner worlds!
No information is disclosed without prior written permission from the client. However, there are some limits on confidentiality as required by law, such as (but not limited to):
- 3rd party party payors (insurance companies)
- Child abuse
- Elder abuse
- Adult dependent abuse
- Threats to serious bodily harm to another person
- Intention to seriously harm yourself
- Subpoena or court order
Yes! Several peer reviewed studies have established that online therapy was just as effective as in person treatment.
The more important question isn’t what the research suggests, but whether it will work for you. That is a question only you can answer.
Some people can struggle with seeing themselves on video, so they will hide their video or will prefer a phone session. That’s totally fine! Some days there may be technical difficulties and we may need to move from online to phone.
If you remain COVID-cautious, and don’t want to risk exposure, telehealth either on encrypted video online or the phone is a great option to help get your mental health needs met.
We have additional air filtration and masks available in our office. For all in person appointments, we require agreement with our COVID-19 consent form. All clinicians have up to date vaccinations.
We are committed to keeping you, ourselves, and all of our families and friends safe from the spread of COVID-19.
We ask all clients to self-monitor for infectious symptoms. We can follow up with services by telehealth. If you show up an appointment and we believe you have a fever or other symptoms, or believe you have been exposed, we will ask you to leave immediately.
If any clinician tests positive for COVID-19, we will notify you so that you can take appropriate precautions too.
