Counseling - Growing Forward Counseling

Trauma

If you have been traumatized by an event in your life, you know that it can have a major impact on your emotions, thoughts, relationships, and physical well-being long after you survived the event itself. Traumas can range from major disasters to seemingly small things you encountered growing up that have stuck with you. I primarily utilize a type of therapy called EMDR to help clients find true healing from trauma and have been trained in an EMDRIA-accredited program.

Here to help

✅ Effects of trauma and distressing life events

✅ Grief and loss

✅ Decreasing or eliminating stress

✅ Finding peace and meaning

✅ Navigating times of personal growth and change

✅ Many other mental health challenges

When you are working with me – regardless of what you are up against – I am present with you, really listening, and respecting you as the expert of your own life. I seek to see you for who you are, and employ effective approaches that best fit you.

The most direct reason is that when my payment comes from you, my primary incentive is not to do work that will satisfy an insurance company, but to do work that will be most effective at helping you meet your goals.
Taking insurance would require me to give you a diagnosis, which I would then need to report to your insurance company. If you do not seem to qualify for a mental disorder, that would lead either to your insurance refusing to cover counseling or me being forced to be dishonest about the content of our session. Getting paid directly by my clients allows everyone involved to avoid that whole mess.
Getting paid by you is the only way I can provide you with therapy that is fully private and confidential. Insurance companies can demand at any time to see my clinical notes for the sessions they are paying for.
You and I will decide together how many sessions you will have and how frequent they will be. Getting paid by insurance companies would only allow me to see clients for as long as and as often as insurance dictates.
If I as your therapist were beholden to insurance companies, I would need to document and report on our sessions in very specific ways, and would be under the constant threat of being audited and having to pay the insurance back for not dotting an "i" or crossing a "t." Not taking insurance alleviates that stress, which benefits both me and my clients.
Setting a private pay rate at my own discretion allows me to have balance in my own life and be at my very best when I'm doing my work!

If you have out-of-network insurance benefits you would like to use, many PPO insurance plans can reimburse you for part or all of the session cost. There are two ways to do this:

I can send you what’s called a Superbill, which is basically an invoice that you can file to your insurance. If they pay for out-of-network mental health services, they’ll process your claim and reimburse you.
We can go through a company I work with called Mentaya. If your insurance covers out-of-network services, Mentaya can file claims and handle the insurance paperwork for you. They charge a 5% fee per claim, but it’s a lot simpler on your end.

Finding Your Way Forward After Trauma And Loss

Compassionate Counseling

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Growing Forward Counseling

Wesley Lawton, MA, LPC

Licensed Professional Counselor

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Patient Review

Wesley was a great therapist. I found him in one of the darkest times of my life. He gave me all the tools I have needed to deal with a lot of the hardships I had in my life. He is very knowledgeable, Empathetic And truly cares about the people he is trying to help.