Services > John C. Flanagan - Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Services

I have been a psychotherapist for thirty-five years and during that time I have performed a great variety of psychotherapeutic and social work functions. Currently my practice is limited to psychotherapy. I generally meet with my clients for a fifty-minute session, longer with couples and families. I am currently accepting new clients.

Therapeutic Style and Philosophy:
I tend to be a very active therapist, meaning that I interact with the client. I ask questions, makes comments, make observations, and offer insights. However, I feel that the ultimate responsibility for progress necessarily resides with the client. I encourage my clients to make their whole life part of their therapy and not just their time in my office. To this end I urge them to keep a "Therapy Notebook", a journal in which they write down everything and anything that relates to their therapeutic work. I encourage them to bring this notebook with them to their sessions in order to both read from it and write in it as they see fit.

The Therapeutic Process:
The first session consists primarily of the client telling me how they perceive their life. I generally do not guide this process or even interrupt it, except for clarification. At this point in the process, I am primarily interested in learning what and how the client thinks. As we proceed with the therapy our discussions examine current attitudes and behaviors and explore their underlying meanings and motives. This discussion includes an exploration of the client's history and how that impacts their perceptions, interpretations, attitudes, opinions and behaviors in their current life. We look at how the client perceived and interpreted past events at the time they occurred and how they might interpret them differently now that they have had more experience with living. We examine behaviors and suggest better ways of accomplishing what the client wants in their life.

Populations and Formats:
I work with adolescents and adults. I see people individually, as couples, in groups and occasionally I see families or subunits of families.

Client's Focus of Treatment:
I work with a wide variety of issues including internal issues such as anxiety and depression, behavioral issues such as acting-out behaviors and anger-management, relationship issues such as on the job, or with a friend, family member or partner, and I work with decision making issues such as life-style choice and career choice and with spiritual issues such as life-goals, life-values and choosing or more actively pursuing a spiritual path.

Specialty:
Because of my own history and my compassion for people with histories of childhood trauma, I have made this my primary area of specialization. (You can read more about this elsewhere in this web site.)

Confidentiality:
All information clients share with me remains confidential except as specified by the laws of the state of Oregon and as required by insurance companies to determine eligibility to receive insurance benefits. With a clients permission I sometimes exchange information with another professional on the client's behalf.

Urgencies and Emergencies:
I make it a point to be accessible to my clients as much as possible within the limits of the other demands on and commitments of my time. Voice mail, a pager and a cellular phone assist me in this effort.

Termination of Therapy:
It may seem premature to discuss termination of therapy on this web site. However, I feel that it is never too early to get potential clients thinking about termination as a process rather than an impulse. Clients sometime end therapy abruptly sometimes without notification and sometimes without any discussion. Clients who are truly ready to end their therapy for whatever reason, tend to be forthcoming about their decision or their consideration of this option. When a client is unwilling or unable to discuss the decision to end therapy in session, it is obviously an indication that there is some unfinished business. So I urge you, whether you are already in therapy or you enter therapy in the future, with me or with any other therapist, please give yourself the benefit of having an open discussion about the ending of therapy, no matter how difficult this seems.

Generally the times in therapy that are seemingly the most difficult, end up being the most productive.

Fees:
My standard fee for a 50-minute session is $120. Longer or shorter sessions are charged proportionately. My standard fee for group therapy is $60 per session and sessions run about 2 hours. Client who are not on insurance and pay in full each time receive a 10% discount.

Insurance Coverage:
Insurance carriers will cover my services in most cases. However, the client is ultimately responsible to insure that all charges get paid. If you want your insurance company to help pay for the cost of counseling, it is essential that you verify coverage with your insurance carrier in advance of your first appointment. There are always exceptions, and some insurance companies use more than one panel, so coverage depends on the actual policy you have. Below is a list of the companies with which I have contracts. Inclusion of your insurance company in this list is no guarantee of coverage. The absence of your company from this list does not necessarily mean that my services won't be covered. Most insurers make some provision for and/or will allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis for out-of-network providers (providers with whom they do not have contracts).