Commonly Asked Questions
You should expect to be greeted with warmth, and introduced to the counselling process. Informed consent is a pillar of ethical care, and so your counsellor will spend around 10 - 15 minutes going through the key elements of the counselling process, with an emphasis on your rights and privileges as the client. (For example, your right to withdraw consent and the privileged position of your worldview and values.) Your counsellor will ask you some questions (our favourite one is “What brings you in today?” 😉) in order to understand what you want to work on, what you want to get out of counselling, and also what your strengths are, and what resources you already draw from.
Sometimes, the things that helped us in the past are no longer useful, and part of counselling may be understanding past coping, while powerful, may no longer be useful – and that you can build something new instead. Every counselling session is about you – and that includes the first session. As you and your counsellor get to know each other that first session, feel free to ask them what you can be thinking about or working on during the week. Counselling isn’t just the appointments – it is all that you do and practice in between!
Your session will be 50 – 60 minutes, depending on your counsellor, and depending on the content and flow of your session. Many counsellors spend 50 minutes with clients and then 10 minutes completing notes. Other counsellors spend 60 minutes with the client while taking notes throughout the session. In either case, your counsellor will communicate their style with you, and you can plan on being in session for about an hour – if not a little less!
Our rates reflect the recommendations of the Psychologists Association of Alberta. Currently this is $200 for a session with a Registered Psychologist, which will increase to $220 come January 1, 2023. Please do not hesitate to ask our Office Manager, Dena Green, with any questions you may have about costs. We DO provide a sliding scale, we DO work with EAPs, we DO direct bill any insurance provider that allows direct billing (and provide you with receipts if your Insurance Company does not direct bill), we DO work with FCSS for subsidized counselling sessions and we DO work with you to explore what options are possible!
Informed consent from both legal guardians is required for any child to be in the room during a counselling session -even infants. Children and babies absorb the emotions around them, and in many cases, the content of therapy involves large and painful topics that are best left to the adults to discuss. To keep your session centred on your process, it is our strong preference that children not be in the room. If this is a concern, please don’t hesitate to speak to your counsellor about it! We are here to support you and want to make this process as accessible as possible 😊