Prepare For Your Visit
Prepare for Your Visit
Prepare for Your Visit
Note to New Clients
First and foremost, thank you. Thank you for entrusting us to assist you as you pursue your goals in counseling. And thank you for playing a crucial role in the development of a counseling intern. You are helping our students develop skills that can only be learned through hands-on experience, an invaluable gift.
We understand the challenges life can bring and commend the courage it takes to seek help. Our team is committed to supporting you and enhancing your quality of life. Our services are designed to help you make decisions, enhance self-understanding, manage emotions, or handle challenges related to school, work, personal relationships, or family problems.
Through counseling, you will make decisions while a counseling intern uses objective counseling techniques and methods to assist you. We respect your value system. Your goals, motivation, life experience, coping skills, and other strengths are important in this process, as well as your candor. Counseling is most effective when you share information freely with your counselor.
Note to New Clients
First and foremost, thank you. Thank you for entrusting us to assist you as you pursue your goals in counseling. And thank you for playing a crucial role in the development of a counseling intern. You are helping our students develop skills that can only be learned through hands-on experience, an invaluable gift.
We understand the challenges life can bring and commend the courage it takes to seek help. Our team is committed to supporting you and enhancing your quality of life. Our services are designed to help you make decisions, enhance self-understanding, manage emotions, or handle challenges related to school, work, personal relationships, or family problems.
Through counseling, you will make decisions while a counseling intern uses objective counseling techniques and methods to assist you. We respect your value system. Your goals, motivation, life experience, coping skills, and other strengths are important in this process, as well as your candor. Counseling is most effective when you share information freely with your counselor.
Before Your First Session
Fill out the client intake, informed consent, and privacy notice forms
Having an idea of what your first session with a counselor intern will be like will ensure the experience is more comfortable
Payment must be submitted in advance of each counseling session
Before Your First Session
Fill out the client intake, informed consent, and privacy notice forms
Having an idea of what your first session with a counselor intern will be like will ensure the experience is more comfortable
Payment must be submitted in advance of each counseling session
- Forms -
We recommend printing and completing the required forms BEFORE your appointment, or arrive 20-30 minutes early. This will ensure you have more time with your counseling intern during your first session.
For teletherapy appointments, return the forms via email to [email protected].
- What to Expect -
Arriving at Your First Session: You will be provided your counseling intern's phone number prior to your first session. When you arrive at the entrance of the CCSC, please text or call your counselor to notify them. They will let you into the building and direct you to the appropriate room to complete forms or begin your session. (Teletherapy Clients: You will be provided a Zoom link in advance. Be sure to enter at least 5 minutes early to ensure your audio, microphone and video is working. You will be entered into a virtual waiting room.)
Session Structure: The first sessions are structured. Your counseling intern will ask many questions to explore with you the concerns or issues that bring you to counseling. This will help to determine how they can help you meet your goals. They will work with you to set counseling goals and explain the limitations, risks, and benefits of counseling. Once a counseling plan is formed, your counseling intern will not ask quite so many questions. You also have the right and responsibility to ask questions and discuss your expectations and progress throughout your sessions.
You may be requested to complete a set of assessments within sessions, including the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Schwartz Outcome Scale (SOS), at a few points over the course of your experience at the CCSC. These instruments, based on a rating scale, are scored by your counselor intern and reviewed to gain greater insight into how you are feeling and thinking within recent weeks. The use of these instruments is for training purposes only and may or may not be shared with you.
Ensuring the Right Fit: If it becomes apparent that the CCSC is not the place that can really help you, your counseling intern will explain this. In consultation with their supervisor, they will provide you with information on where you can get the right kind of mental health care, taking into account your resources and preferences. If at any time you do not feel the services meet your needs, or if the match with the counseling intern is not a good fit, you may request another intern or referral to other community resources. If you have any questions or comments, please contact the CCSC.
Counselor Intern Supervision & Recording of Sessions: Our counseling interns are supervised by faculty members and supervisors in individual and small group settings. We use a secure taping system to record all counseling sessions. This allows supervisors to ensure that you are getting quality counseling. It also allows them guide counseling interns to develop their skills. The recordings are security stored and destroyed at the conclusion of the student’s internship.
Consultation is one of the learning tools we ask our counseling interns to use. At some point during a counseling session, your counseling intern may step out of the room to consult briefly with a supervisor. Sometimes the CCSC will require this of the intern, and at others times, the intern may decide that a brief consultation will enhance their ability to conduct the therapy session. Either way, the intern will return to the counseling room quickly.
Release of Information: If you have worked with another helping professional (therapist, counselor, psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist), you will be asked to sign a Release of Information. This release gives the CCSC permission to ask for information about your work with these providers. Learning what has helped in the past can make counseling more effective for you now.
Ethics and Policies: All CCSC counseling interns and personnel are guided by the professional ethical standards set forth by the American Counseling Association and National Board of Certified Counselors. You will read more about our strict security policies, along with limitations, in the 'Informed Consent' document you must read and sign before your first session.
Ensuring Your Safety: If you experience the following symptoms that could endanger your safety and well-being, your counselor intern, in consultation with supervisors and clinic staff, will help you find immediate help. This could include hospitalization, and/or longer term mental health care in a more specialized setting.
- Suicidal or homicidal urges or plans
- Highly risky use of alcohol or other drugs
- Re-emergence of disordered eating
- Other severe psychiatric symptoms
Counseling Session Schedule: Counseling sessions are scheduled on the same day and time each week. If a session is cancelled, the session will be rescheduled for the following week. Counseling sessions last 50 minutes. If you are late in joining a session, the session cannot be extended. If you will be more than 30 minutes late, the session should be rescheduled for the following week. To cancel a session, call the CCSC (Alexandria: 703-299-9148, Foggy Bottom: 202-994-8645). If appointments are not cancelled at least 24 hours before the session would start, you will be responsible for paying a late cancellation fee, equal to the cost of one session.
The CCSC closes for one week each semester and three to five weeks between semesters. Counseling sessions typically do not take place when the CCSC is closed.
Counseling interns spend two semesters in the CCSC. When you meet your counseling intern, the intern will let you know when they will be completing their time in the CCSC. Your counseling intern may conclude their work in the CCSC before you conclude your therapy. In that case, you may be able to work with another intern, or we can help you find other counselors in the community.
The CCSC does not provide emergency services. We do not have an on-call counselor, and we do not provide walk-in sessions.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please call or text 988, go to the nearest emergency department, or visit Talk To Someone Now - 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (988lifeline.org)