Costs:
Insurance I take:
Aetna (various types), Anthem Blue Cross, Apostrophe, Bright, Cigna (various types), Foster Source, Friday, Justice Reskill, Optum, Oscar and United (various types). I also take Medicaid and Triwest.
I provide affordable therapy, and will work with you to find cost-effective support. There are many options. So if your insurance is not on the list above, I can provide you with receipts that you can possibly use to get reimbursed, depending on your plan (i.e., you can turn in your sessions with me as an out-of-network provider). Whether this works for you depends upon your deductible and co-pay.
I do not take TRICARE or Kaiser at this point.
Private Pay: I work on a sliding scale from $90-120 for a 60-minute session, based on what you can afford. But if you can’t afford $90, please contact me and let’s talk through some options–there are a number of possibilities. I want you to be able to get the help you need at a price you can afford.
My schedule is usually fairly full, but there are often openings that come up. Please call (719) 377-4577 (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.) or just email me: jeff.farmer.therapy@gmail.com.
Methods I Use:
It’s helpful to realize that the most important aspect of therapy is our ability to work together. It’s important that you feel that I’m the right therapist for you. The connection we form is called a therapeutic relationship, and research on therapy shows that this is a big factor in your recovery. It’s usually more important than the methods used, it seems.
People sometimes continue quite a while with therapy that they feel isn’t helping. I don’t recommend this. If you don’t feel like things are going well and helping you (at least a little bit) after a few sessions, I hope you will consider finding someone else. At the very least let your therapist know how you’re feeling about it, and see if there is a way to improve things.
That being said, here are the methods that I sometimes use, depending on your goals in therapy:
Reflective listening
Listening is the beginning of all good therapy. It is important for you to bring your problems to the surface and openly explore possible solutions. This can be done through reflective listening. This is what most people think of when they think of therapy, but it’s just the beginning.
Psychoeducation
There are many aspects of how our brains function that most people are not aware of. Cognitive neuroscience, psychology, medicine, biology and other fields are daily providing new information about how the brain works. So understanding some of these things is often helpful in learning how to improve the way we deal with life. I provide clients with as much information as I can regarding what I know about the brain which might be helpful to them in addressing their own problems. Knowing about ourselves helps us manage our challenges.
EMDR
EMDR is one of my go-to’s for trauma therapy, although there are other methods I also use. It can be very helpful. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and it works by stimulating both sides of the brain. This jump-starts the process of healing from trauma, allowing traumatic events to be processed and integrated. This means that it doesn’t just help us manage our symptoms–it can actually support your healing process, and partially or sometimes completely resolve PTSD symptoms. It can work well for many different kinds of trauma, including childhood trauma. Read more about EMDR.
Focused breathing and relaxation
There are some very simple relaxation techniques, which are based on information from modern medicine (and are consistent with some ancient traditions), which people can use to calm themselves very quickly when they are facing difficult situations. I make sure my clients know how to use these, and we practice them so that they can become tools that get used regularly.
Guided meditation
Guided meditation is a process of accessing inner resources so that you can use those resources to solve personal problems. This is often used to enhance relaxation. So it can help with calming and stress/anxiety relief, creating a better sense of well-being.
Clinical hypnosis
I use something called Ericksonian hypnosis. This is not like stage hypnosis you may have seen for entertainment purposes. I use this technique only to provide clients with a deeper way to access and use their positive inner resources to solve problems. You will be in control of yourself at all times. This form of hypnosis requires and utilizes your full cooperation. You may think of it as a deeper and more focused version of guided meditation. More on clinical hypnosis….
Trauma Dynamics
Trauma dynamics is a modality that utilizes what we know about how the human autonomic nervous system operates. It can support people to heal from internalized distress due to traumatic or highly stressful life events. It also provides some calming techniques, and includes some experiential work on relational issues. So I find this modality to be very helpful, and I integrate it into what I do with most clients. Trauma Dynamics is based on the work of Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Eric Wolterstorff, therapist Saj Razvi, LPC and others. (www.TraumaDynamics.com)
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive therapy targets our thinking processes, which may be dysfunctional and may be causing us some distress or creating difficulties in our lives. So it targets cognitive distortions, which are beliefs about the world or people which cause these difficulties, and explores how these dysfunctional thinking patterns can be changed. This is all based on your goals and objectives. Changes in thinking that you decide to make can be helpful. However, I don’t focus mostly on this form of therapy; it’s sometimes helpful.
If you have questions about the forms of therapy I provide, please ask me.
Biographical Sketch:
Jeff Farmer, MA, LPC, NCC is a psychotherapist in practice in Colorado Springs, CO. He has had many years of experience in the helping professions (Education, at a variety of levels) before moving into the counseling field. Jeff specializes in anxiety, addiction and, notably, trauma (which is often an underlying cause of the other two), as well as working with those who have no diagnosis, or are diagnosed with mood or attention disorders. He has a Master’s degree in Counseling, and additional specialized training in both trauma/PTSD treatment and the use of clinical hypnosis.