How much are sessions?

Wow. The prices you all have to pay are so high its ridiculous.

Well, gosh... I pay her a lot more per hour than I make, but she had to get a Master's degree and have years of supervision to have her credentials. Then, she worked 20 years to get to the level of experience and skill she's at now.

Beyond her education and experience, she had to pay rent for an office, insurance, continuing education fees, and other expenses. Now that she works from home, she pays half the fee to the service we use, so of my $100 an hour, she gets $50, and she can't count on working 8 hours a day, so she's not making $400 a day.

I wish therapy cost less, but I don't think it's ridiculous... I respect what it takes to be a great therapist and I understand she has to make a living. I don't think she's gotten rich doing it, I don't think she's trying to fleece me.

My T charges $150.00-$190.00 per hour. I pay $50.00. I do not have insurance for T's services, so T gives me a discount. ( I have been seeing T off and on over 7 years)

Mine charges $90/ session. I use my insurance though so pay a much smaller copay. I think he should charge more......I've got a weird hang up about the money lately like I just want to pay him more /: idk what that means....

He is really cool about payment as well. When I originally went to him I was in a much worse financial situation and was not sure id be able to use my insurance. He wanted to know how much I could afford and was willing to work with whatever I needed pretty much. He is still like this and I don't know how to wrap my head around that.... To me, it's pretty special

I spend about $6,000 per year, out of pocket. Session prices are above $120.

It is the most expensive thing I do, outside housing and food.

But, I can't put a price on saving my own life. I was that desperate.

ours sees us completely free of charge we are so very fortunate ♥

I pay £42 a session so about $70 I think. I go twice a week so this is expensive as all out of pocket, but I'm hoping that investing now will mean a much better future.

I guess this is one time when it is a benefit to be poor. A lot of clients there are medicaid or sliding scale. I am sliding scale. I used to pay $5 a week, but with all the new U.S. laws, I pay nothing.

Absolutely, Willow, I totally agree with this.

Wow, sliding scale for Ts is not common at all where I live. It's 60$ a session for me, weekly. I pay out of pocket and that's also why I can't/don't wanna leave my job before I find another one. That's one of the lowest prices here for private Ts. I give many things up to pay her and be sure I have a good "margin" but she's making me come back to life plus sees me late after I finish working and usually lets me stay for 60/65 minutes.

Before she was licensed, I paid $80 a week. She doesn't accept insurance, but she does do a sliding scale. A few months in, when I told her I couldn't pay $320 a month and suggested to come only twice a month instead, she told me it was important that I come weekly and offered let me pay the cost of two sessions ($160) for the month. I warned her that my financial situation probably wouldn't change for quite some time and she said that was fine, to just let her know if something changes or if needed to be adjusted lower.

Fast forward a year: she's licensed now and I had to sign a new contract. I saw her rates went up ($120 a session), but she kept mine at $40. Recently, I picked up some extra freelance work and offered to pay her $50 a session now ($10 more than our past fee). I apologized that it wasn't much of a difference and didn't want her to feel insulted it was only $10 more, but she was, to my surprise, greatly touched by the gesture. She told me that most people probably wouldn't have offered to pay more even if they could and that she really appreciated that I was looking out for her.

She charges $160...my co pay is $15 and my insurance pays $42...She has told me at times when hubby has been laid off to not to worry about that I could pay her later. I have always made sure I could pay her. At one point I had a mini crisis and wound up spending a few hours in the ER...(the hospital she works at rather than mine). She spent a lot of time on the phone with my hubby and the ER doctor...she refused payment for all that time..then she insisted on seeing me in her private office the next day (a Sunday) at no charge.

I often think about the cost of therapy and whether it is "worth it."

I've been broker than broke and have started out at zero. I know how it feels to not go to movies or ever eat out or do anything fun because you've got $40 to your name and you need it for groceries. In that time of my life, I literally could not afford therapy. I couldn't even afford a reduced rate.

But now that I do have discretionary income, I try to avoid saying, "I can't afford," in my everyday language. Instead I say, "I choose not to afford" such and such.

For example, I choose not to afford cable. I choose not to afford a new car, and I drive an old beat-up car. (If you saw me pull into the T parking lot, you'd assume I could not afford the full therapy rate.) I choose not to afford the latest gadgets and technology. I choose not to afford regular manicures.

I do choose to pay my therapist the full hourly rate. I choose to tip generously of wait staff. I choose to afford a few nice outfits that are expensive. I choose to afford adventurous experiences.

These are my particular choices, but we all have them.

I never want to be in a situation with my T, where I'm talking about something that I bought, and T is secretly wondering if I could afford the full rate. Like, say T was giving me a $40 discount and I come in wearing a new sweater. Will T wonder, "Why did Peejay choose that sweater over paying me the full rate?"

I. don't. even. want. to. deal. with. it.

Therapy, in my case, is worth the money I'm paying. Though, the risk/reward profile and the return on investment has changed over time.

When I first started therapy, I had suicidal thoughts and intent. Having therapy to look forward to each week made me feel like I was doing something about these thoughts. It kept me alive, in a way. It wasn't the only thing I had to live for, but it really helped. In that case, it's hard to put a price on saving my life.

Therapy is probably one of the cheapest ways, with the least side effects, to help oneself get to a point where life seems worth it again.

I also dealt with constant anxiety -- and therapy has given me concrete ways to deal with that so that my quality of life improved. My quality of relationships improved as well.

So I think the majority of my personal ROI has been achieved.

What's crazy is that a therapist charges the same amount no matter what value one gets from it. In the beginning, therapy had massive value because I'd never done it before and because I was an emotional wreck.

"Fairness" would dictate that I'd pay the therapist a lot more than I did. It's not uncommon to spend thousands of dollars to save one's life -- look at the cost of cancer treatment, for instance.

Now, I am healthier emotionally and the return on investment is smaller. My gains are smaller because one can only be so happy and well-adjusted. At this point, I'm outsourcing my caring to someone who will listen to me. That's a rare quality to find in life. And I do it because I don't have parents who will do it and because I was abused as a kid.

Finally, I was woefully misinformed about the risk / reward of therapy when I first began.

Every decision has a risk and a reward.

With my first therapist, I thought that potential risk was that I would waste my money and not get better. And the potential reward was obvious -- I would get better.

It never occurred to me that this therapist would practice "unconditional positive regard" on me, which would make me get attached quickly. I'd never experienced such a thing and I fell for it. But my first T was using tricks -- the T didn't actually care and abandoned me when things go serious.

That first T advised me against regular sessions and literally stopped responding to appointment requests. I felt betrayed and abandoned and it triggered all my previous abandonments.

That pissed me the hell off. I didn't realize that the risk was that one could end up emotionally worse off than when one started.

I was much more cautious with my second T. And I almost didn't go back to therapy, but I tried reading many self-help books, talking to friends, and even sought out wise older others in my community to talk to. Nothing worked.

It turns out, I had PTSD. So now it all makes sense.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on risk-reward and ROI regarding therapy. :P

Mine are £30 each on a sliding scale.

I pay $250 per session out of pocket 2 to 4 times per week and insurance reimburses me not quite half. The fee has increased $75 in the last 2 years. I really hope it doesn't go up again this year. Before I started going multiple sessions per week, T told me that he discounted the cost for patients who had multiple sessions, but that never happened once I increased the frequency. Occasionally, I have to cut back or take a break when other expenses come up.

I know I should ask about the rate, but it was several months between when he told me he offered a lower rate and when I actually started increasing sessions. Now it's been so long, it feels too hard to ask.

I do feel like he's worth it. I've had T's that cost much less where I felt like it was really expensive compared to what I was getting out of it.

Now, I'm looking for a third job to cover the cost.
One thing about the high cost...when I feel like quitting, it's easy to use that as an excuse because I know I'd be saving so much. I just have to remind myself that it won't matter how much I'm saving if I can't live life.

How many of you are kinda struggling while you wait to be reimbursed from your ins co? Even though I only pay $60 (out of his $160 rate) it's still a big expense on my salary. I have been waiting 3 months for reimbursement. I got a letter from my ins co saying it's "under review." I asked my T about it and he said if it's declined he will call on my behalf and see what he can possibly do.

I had to learn to jump through some serious hoops, but once I got a system, Its much smoother. I keep track of everything I submitted and call them repeatedly to ask what the holdup is. I always follow up. Of you are a Cigna user I can give you some tips.

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