Here are some commonly asked questions. As our practice grows and we hear more of your questions, we will add them to this page. Please keep checking as more information is added.
If your question is not here, or the answers provided below are not sufficient for you, please feel free to contact us for more information.
Every person and every situation is different. What may be bothersome to one may not be to others. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “Is this issue disrupting my life? Is it disrupting our family?” However, it’s important to know that some people are really good at acting as if everything is okay even though they feel really badly on the inside. In either of these two situations, services may be warranted.
We offer a free phone consultation to determine if we will be a good match for you. We will only schedule you if we believe that we have a therapist that is a good match for you. If we determine that our areas of expertise are not sufficient for helping you or your child, we will work with you to find other professionals and resources. Please note that you will need to determine if those professionals and resources are covered under your insurance plan.
First, we want to congratulate you on the first step in achieving mental health and wellness. It’s not easy, but you put the time into gathering information to decide which practice will best serve you. Congratulations!
Next, give us a call or text us (908-914-2624) or send us an email (info@anxietyandbehaviornj.com) to set up a free phone consultation with one of our warm and friendly staff members who will first gather some basic background information about you or your child to help us first determine if we’re the right fit for you. If we are, we will pair you with a therapist that can help you reach your goals. Our therapists have a wide range of training backgrounds and areas of expertise, so we’re confident that will find the right match for you or your child. Then, we will set up your initial appointment time.
If we’re not the right fit, we will provide you with referrals and resources to help you continue on your journey to mental health and wellness.
All of our therapists have diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. This allows us to match you with a skilled therapist who will truly understand your needs. We will work with you to determine which therapist will be the right fit for you or your child.
For adults, you can come to your first appointment with anyone you believe will provide helpful information to your therapist, or you may choose to come alone if you feel more comfortable. For children, parents should come to the first appointment alone, as this gives parents the chance to talk openly, freely, and honestly about the concerns they have for their child. The intake session gives you an opportunity to provide thorough background information so that your therapist has a good grasp on what’s occurring in your life, possible causes of your concerns, and the factors that are maintaining these issues in your life. This is extremely helpful for treatment planning.
Your first session is typically a 90-minute intake session, which is the beginning of the assessment process. Prior to this session, your therapist will have received your background form and learned a little about your history, which will help guide the intake meeting. You and your therapist will engage in dialogue to help your therapist learn more about your concerns and to begin to formulate ideas about causes of your struggles and treatment strategies that would be the right fit for you. If you would like for your therapist to talk to others in order to gather more information, you will have the opportunity to sign an authorization form allowing your therapist to call those individuals.
For parents of children and teens, your child will attend the second session with you and will be given an opportunity to talk alone with your therapist. This provides your child with a safe place to openly and honestly discuss his or her concerns. The goal is for your therapist to have as much information as possible so that he or she can best help your family.
Please note that it may take your therapist a few sessions to complete the assessment process to gain a clear understanding of your needs. Although our goal is to be as efficient as possible, sometimes an extra session is needed for information gathering. Once a thorough assessment has been conducted, your therapist will provide you with a clear treatment plan and recommendations on how to proceed.
Your therapist will also be able to answer any questions that you have and discuss your concerns.
It is common for children and teens to resist going to therapy. If you experience this, we recommended scheduling a parent session to discuss these concerns with your therapist. Your therapist can work with you to develop a plan for this situation and can also support you with explaining therapy to your child or teen. If your child or teen still refuses ongoing therapy, your therapist can still provide parent sessions to educate you and to help you learn ways to help your child or teen.
After the initial 90-minute intake session, therapy sessions are typically 45 minutes in length. Family or couples’ sessions may be longer. Sessions typically occur weekly, but you and your therapist may determine that sessions need to be more or less frequent. Some may need more frequent sessions while others may need less frequent sessions. Your therapist will discuss what frequency of treatment he or she feels is best for you or your child.
No. You and your therapist will discuss progress along the way. Some issues may be minor enough that only a few sessions will be needed. Other issues may require more sessions. Sessions are typically held weekly, but whether you meet for a few weeks, a few months, or a year or more will depend on your specific needs. The benefit of working with the Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management is that your course of treatment is tailored to your needs.
Usually, you will not have to take your child out of school for appointments. Our therapists offer after school, evening, and weekend appointment times. If a therapist’s schedule is full, you may have the option of taking an appointment during school hours and then switching to a different time slot when his or her schedule opens up. We will work with you to best serve your child with as little disruption as possible.
Yes, we have various appointment times available. Are you busy during the week? We have evening and Saturday appointments available. Are you a homeschool or stay-at-home parent, retiree, college student, or working professional who has a flexible schedule? Take advantage of our morning and lunch time appointment spots.
Before starting any services, we always recommend that you contact your insurance company to ask what services are covered. We can guide you on questions to ask your insurance company so that there are no surprises.
According to the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, it is defined as the following:
“Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the term used for a group of psychological treatments that are based on scientific evidence. These treatments have been proven to be effective in treating many psychological disorders.
Some people have an inaccurate view of what psychological therapy is, perhaps because of the old-fashioned treatments shown on TV or in the movies. For example, on TV, psychotherapy may seem to involve dream interpretation or complex discussions of one’s past childhood experiences. This type of psychotherapy is outdated. In fact, very few psychotherapists (e.g., psychologists, social workers, or psychiatrists) use this type of treatment.
Cognitive and behavioral therapies usually are short-term treatments (i.e., often between 6-20 sessions) that focus on teaching clients specific skills. CBT is different from many other therapy approaches by focusing on the ways that a person’s cognitions (i.e., thoughts), emotions, and behaviors are connected and affect one another. Because emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are all linked, CBT approaches allow for therapists to intervene at different points in the cycle.”
BPT (sometimes called parent management training [PMT] or behavior therapy) is an evidence-based treatment approach for children engaging in significant disruptive, noncompliant, and/or aggressive behaviors. BPT is the only treatment considered to be “well established” and is recommended to be the first line of treatment for these situations due to its high levels of effectiveness. BPT is intended to help parents modify their own behaviors to evoke behavioral changes in their children. According to the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), “Parent training represents a therapeutic approach in which parents are taught how to increase desirable child behavior, reduce children’s misbehavior, improve parent-child interactions, and bring about a positive family atmosphere.”
We’re often asked why parents are heavily involved in treatment for these presenting issues. It is very uncommon for misbehaving children to attend his or her own therapy session, understand and remember suggestions for more prosocial, adaptive behaviors, and then maintain motivation to utilize these strategies when feeling intense negative emotions outside of the office setting. Because children often don’t have their own internal motivation for making long-lasting, positive behavioral changes, parents are a necessary part of treatment to motivate their children to make better behavioral choices. Other forms of therapy that only require the child’s presence have much less scientific support and are often much less effective.
BPT is highly effective for the following concerns:
Here is a link describing evidence-based treatments for different mental health issues (you can also search by diagnosis to learn about specific recommended treatments):
http://effectivechildtherapy.org/therapies/what-is-behavior-therapy/
The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management is a fee-for-service practice, which means that we require payment at the time services are provided. We accept cash, check, and MasterCard, Visa, and Discover credit cards. We would be considered an out-of-network provider and would be happy to provide you with receipts which include all of the information you’d need for submitting directly to your insurance company for your own reimbursement.
We advise everyone to contact their individual insurance companies to determine what’s covered, if authorizations are needed, etc. If you have any questions, please ask us; we’re happy to guide you.
While we understand and are sensitive to the fact that cost is a strong factor when considering the right therapist, we strongly encourage prospective patients to consider the following:
We want you to make the most informed and best decision for you or your loved one.
Please call us at (908) 914-2624 to inquire about our current fees.
Please call or text us (908) 914-2624 for a free 15-minute phone consultation. You can also email us at info@anxietyandbehaviornj.com to schedule this. We look forward to hearing your story so that we can schedule you with a therapist that can best meet your needs.
Therapy costs can range, so we recommend that you call us to discuss the options. Factors that affect costs are therapists’ level of training and experience and the length of your therapy session.
At Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management, we provide you with a Good Faith Estimate which explains your mental health care costs. While this gives you a general idea, your actual costs of mental health care will depend on how many sessions you have, and the more consistent you are in attending, the more likely it is that you’ll need less therapy sessions, reducing the cost of treatment.
We have many therapists with different specializations. As our name suggests, we specialize in treating the range of anxiety disorders, behavior issues, depression, ADHD, and much more. For more information on our specializations, please go to our About Us page.
We work with young children, children, teens, adults, and families.
Yes, we tailor sessions to meet your needs. If you want in-person, phone, or video appointments, we can accommodate that.
We know life happens. We require 24 hours’ notice to cancel an appointment without being charged the full fee. Please call or text our office (908-914-2624) or email us info@anxietyandbehaviornj.com to cancel an appointment.
We do not have a psychiatrist on staff, and none of our staff does medication prescribing or management. We’re happy to give you referrals to psychiatrists.