• I have had a wide array of experience in the mental health field over the nearly two decades I have been in this profession. I have worked as a crisis counselor, with mentally ill youth and adults, with substance users struggling with addiction, and with low-income adults. I feel like I truly found my calling in this field when I began working in prisons and jails. I have been honored to work daily with the people that dedicate their lives to protecting society from criminal behavior, and I have had the privilege of training with them for years.

• We are generally not benefited by looking at things in terms of good or bad, especially when those things regard our mental health. Rather, it is best to look at things as more or less healthy. You alone define what health means for you. It is both our jobs to help get you there.
• The ways we think, feel, and act all work together and impact one another, therefore if we can change one we often have the power to change the others.
• Relationships are often the keys to both our pain and our healing.
• It is no one’s job, especially mine, to tell you what to do. Rather, my place is to help you see and understand the options that lay before you so that you can make the most healthy and informed decisions for your life, and to walk beside you in the process.
• Law enforcement generally struggle with a level of stress that is unsurpassed by most other members of society. This impacts nearly everyone in the field and makes your experience unique.
• Rationality and irrationality are opposite and inescapable aspects of our existence. Irrationality gives passion and definition and much meaning to our experience. Rationality is the only way that we can understand and contemplate our experience. Science is based on rationality and is the best tool for understanding the rules by which the universe, and we as an extension of the universe, operate.

• Value systems – People are better able to lead more healthy lives when they understand themselves and why they react the way they do. This often includes learning healthy ways of taking responsibility for things we are responsible for, and learning to understand, accept, and surrender to things outside of our control. We are at our best when we can find meaning in all of our experiences, good and bad. Defining your hierarchy of personal values and creating a meaningful story about your life is essential to this process. Counseling can help you to do this.   

• One of the primary reasons that counseling works is due to the relationship that you and the counselor form. This relationship is essential in the process of learning healthier ways to live. This is why finding the right fit with a counselor is important. I will actively work with you to form a positive therapeutic relationship. 

• Sessions typically last around an hour (usually 50 minutes). We will work together to determine how often we should meet that serves your needs best. Sometimes people only need a few sessions until they feel that they have a better understanding of the things that brought them there and feel ready to move on, while other people might stay involved for years because they feel like they constantly benefit from it. Your life, health, and choices are yours to make and I will not pressure you. I am happy to be with you in the process for as long as you like and feel that you are moving towards health, understanding, and meaning. It is my privilege to be next to you during that journey. 

Insurance can be very beneficial, however there are several reasons that I do not accept it:

• In order for insurance to pay for counseling the counselor must diagnose you with a mental health disorder. 
• People often seek counseling for many other reasons when they do not have a mental health disorder, such as for personal growth or relationship issues. 
• Diagnoses can carry unnecessary stigma and often remain permanently in your medical record. At times, this information may also be shared with other entities.
• I will not diagnose you with a mental disorder.
• Counselors billing insurance must send regular progress reports to the insurance company showing that you still have a mental health disorder, and are getting better, but aren’t “cured” yet.
• I never want to feel obligated to prove that you have a mental illness. 
• Insurance companies look at the reports that counselors write and decide if you still need counseling and for how many more sessions. 
• You and I should be the ones that can most accurately determine how effective counseling is, not someone that does not know us and has never seen us work together. 
• We will decide together how long we should continue our work in order to best address your concerns, without insurance restrictions.
• It is also common for insurance companies to only pay for a limited number of sessions.
• The good news is that I will match your insurance copay for as long as they would pay for sessions, and then we can move to the regular rate.  
• You lose nothing from trying counseling through Blue Line Connection, and you do not have to experience any of the downsides of going through insurance.