Complete the Group Interest Screening Form.
In addition to individual and family counseling, I am also accepting members for a therapy groups. Availability of this service will be based on client interest, so if you are interested, definitely reach out and let me know. When I have enough people (minimum of 4) to start a group within a given age-group, the next group with launch!
How Groups Help with Social Relationships
Do you or your child/teen really struggle with making or keeping friends or working well with groups of people? Using concepts extracted from my training in Michele Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking™ framework, this style of group can help kids, teens, young adults, and mature adults alike, using fun activities and projects, that are adjusted to the age of the group. The group interaction allows for opportunities to address areas where there may be misperceptions of social cues or unknowingly crossing “unwritten” social boundaries that can negatively affect how people see us. Additionally, we work on increasing the ability to utilize information that we learn about each other to enhance social interactions (which all good friendships do), while developing and practicing skills that can develop and maintain positive friendships and working relationships.
Session & Financial Details
| • | The group would meet every other week for a total of 8 sessions that are 75-minutes long. (Occasionally, a week will be skipped during a holiday but the total number of sessions will remain the same. The planned dates will be announced prior to the beginning of the group. Additionally, groups that are working well together can potentially be extended to a higher number of sessions.) |
| • | Please see rates page for current fee. Payments are to be made in advance for entire 8 week session, regardless of ability to attend. Because it is clinically best for the group size to remain small, it’s important to prioritize attendance and your advanced payment is your commitment to attend. |
| • | If you are not an ongoing client of mine, you will also need to come in for an individual, intake session (75-minutes, see rates page). Note: I don’t schedule these appointments unless I have received enough pre-screening forms that make it likely that I have enough people to make a well-matched group. |
| • | Day and time determined by group member availability. |
Each session will have
| • | greeting time, |
| • | activities designed to have us interacting with each other in fun ways (while learning at the same time), |
| • | wrap-up/discussion time. |
Social Thinking™
The group will be focusing primarily on Michele Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking framework. These concepts can help us to…| • | learn how to be more tuned in to our social environments; |
| • | use prior knowledge to think about what’s going on “underneath the surface” of the observable parts of social interactions; |
| • | respond to these environments in a way that helps those around us to feel comfortable (making us feel more comfortable too!) ; |
| • | and makes it more likely that we will meet our personal goals for the interaction (i.e. to get to know someone better, to figure out why someone is upset, to resolve conflict, to work well on a team) . |
It’s important to note that that the goal is not that we all have to completely conform to others expectations of us. It’s fine, even wonderful(!), to walk a different path. However, some people very much want friendship in their lives yet are really struggling with cultivating these types of relationships. Sometimes people (like folks with ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder) have such busy brains that they don’t automatically tune into other people’s body language, tone of voice, or moments of sarcasm. Social Thinking techniques teach, in a more direct way, how to pull back and read people’s social cues so that we can consciously decide how we would like to be perceived by others. These techniques can also be really helpful with improving work and, sometimes, family relationships.
Jump to my Financial Policy for Groups