Frequently Asked Questions

Given the global pandemic, I expect to stay with teletherapy exclusively through 2021. I am looking for an office currently, and expect it will be somewhere close to Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake City, being thoughtful about traffic and ease of access for clients. Some of my clients will want to remain teletherapy and others would rather be in-person. I want clients to be able to have that choice with every session. Clients will be able to decide independently which sessions they attend in-person and which they do by video-conference.

I use evidence-based interventions, that are primarily based in cognitive behavioral therapy. For me to utilize an intervention, it has to be based on science, make a difference for the client, and help them move towards what matters in their life. Interpersonally, clients find that I: 1) show lots of warmth and compassion; 2) am genuine; you will have a real sense of me; 3) believe you are capable of powerful change.

Since I learned it in 2006, my primary therapy language is ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). I’m not sure I can even speak as a psychologist without it. ACT is a third-wave, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Existential and person-centered or Rogerian theoretical orientations also strongly inform my practice. I developed as a psychologist in the 90s so my professional repertoire was informed by Narrative, Feminist, Multicultural, Existential, Family Systems, and Gestalt therapy orientations.

I’ll try and give you a sense based on what clients and colleagues have told me: warm, direct, irreverent, compassionate, uses humor and a full range of colorful language, straight-up, occasionally intense (I will call you on your stuff). Wasting money, resources, or worst of all your time – I find offensive. I believe in being efficient as a therapist. Short of what a client brings into therapy (their background, experience, personality, etc), the largest component involved in therapeutic change is the relationship between myself and a client. To evaluate that, please schedule a free consult with me to see if we’re a good fit. Also if we’re not a fit, I can usually give you referrals for other therapists.

Favorite answer from a psychologist is “it depends” so I’ll try and give you other ways to know:

• You’ll spontaneously see a pattern such as something you struggle with, recognize it and be able to make a different choice in the moment;
• You will have a much bigger toolbox to handle unwanted, negative memories, thoughts, sensations, and feelings;
• It won’t be so ‘loud’ or ‘noisy’ inside;
• You’ll feel more like the real you.

Sure:

• Full adult who has had trauma early in life and a recent very scary experience who easily meets criteria for PTSD, we take 17 sessions total. Which gets a person through a full, 12 session trauma protocol (CPT), better coping tools, and increased meaning in their life. The suffering they experienced is reduced by at least half (as measured by a PCL).
• Person in the middle of parenting who comes in for help with anger, depression, interpersonal relationship work takes 10 sessions. With that we have increased choice in how they respond to their kids, decreased irritability, better coping tools, and more compassion for themselves. The ACT term of what is accomplished would be increased “psychological flexibility”.

I 100% agree with you. I’ve also hit that point in life where I realize that there are only so many battles I can fight. My energy is much better spent helping somebody come to terms with a life-limiting illness, or the decision to stay married or divorce or grieve a suicided relative than waiting on hold or arguing with insurance.

I will make it as easy as possible for you to be reimbursed by your insurance, usually under out of network benefits. I send receipts after payments and once a month I send a super-bill, which is the easiest thing to secure reimbursement from insurance. I am willing to try and assist in any way to make this easier for you, but for now have chosen to accept private pay only.

It is. I’ve spent most of my career providing services to people who would not have had access to quality therapy and that has been an important social justice variable for me. Where I am finding my services most in demand in Utah is with healthcare providers, decision-makers, and people with more means and resources than when I began providing psychology services. Efficiency, honesty, and results with an accommodating psychologist are what I provide now.

Therapy is an investment. If I could reduce the amount of suffering somebody has by half or allow you to be a better partner and have less volatile marital conflicts is that worth $4K (20 sessions x $200)? It’s an investment in yourself. My goal for therapy is to get you where you want to go efficiently. My clients do start seeing change within single digit number of sessions. I pride myself on having a strong slope in therapy and can tell you clients have gotten the majority of their therapy gains with me by 21 sessions, which is why I use that $4K as an upper limit.

I’m a psychologist and not a magician. There are things that therapy cannot do. I can’t stop you from having negative feelings, memories, thoughts, and sensations. I can’t remove an experience from your history. Trust me with all that is good in the universe, I wish that I could. Having borne witness to many clients’ worst days on the planet, I wish I could and I would also send that lazy karma to visit some poor quality humans on their behalf. But therapy does not work that way. I can teach you how to live better with your history so those experiences are not hi-jacking your life.

That would be so cool, if we could only feel positive emotions – bring me joy, but leave the worthlessness over there, right? Except, it doesn’t work that way. You have to learn the ‘language’ of emotions, which does NOT respond to logic, rationality, linearity, or any other ‘rules.’ Emotions are more like feral animals or non-verbal children, demanding time, energy at really ‘bad times’ or throwing a big tantrum in the check-out line. We shove them away, down, or pretend they’re not there, etc. And then they pop back up again. Feelings are data. They’re trying to tell you something is important here. If you had a car and the indicator light says ‘check engine’ you don’t cut the wire to the indicator light. You need to learn to understand what the emotion is trying to tell you. You can learn skills to live with more ease in regards to your emotions, but as long as you’re a human being, the full range of human experience is a given.

This is a belief fundamental to ACT, that we have to learn how to handle our negative emotions, thoughts, sensations, and memories. Think of all the things you might have been doing to try and make ‘it’ go away, such as losing yourself in work, staying busy all the time, alcohol, fitness, gaming/netflixing/zoning out. You’ve likely tried a lot of things before getting to reading this FAQ. I wouldn’t encourage you to try those things more frequently or more intensely. We have to do something differently, which is usually to learn the programming language for emotional experience.

You come to therapy ready to spend a few hours a week on whatever brings you into therapy. There will always be therapy homework if we work together. Also, I need you to understand I am an outpatient psychologist and that you are stable enough to go a week or at most two between sessions. Clients in active or repeated crisis need more support than a single outpatient psychologist.

Because if you come once a week to therapy, hoping to talk about the week before, things don’t change. Venting is not therapy. The real work of changing your life [homework] often happens out of session. If you’re hoping to continue doing things as you were, I will not be a good fit as a therapist. Supportive therapy might be a better fit for you. Homework at the low end might be doing daily breathing 1x a day or be vulnerable with a person you’ve wounded and apologize deeply. At the higher end it might involve an hours worth of writing exercises to address trauma. Homework is always designed to help you move forward; it’s not busy work.

Because therapy often does not always wrap up neatly in 45 minutes. Or maybe I should say therapy with me does not always end neatly in 45 minutes. As a psychologist, I value efficiency and results, so I might push you at times and/or trauma or suffering sometimes goes beyond the hour or half-hour. Therapy sessions are 45-53 minutes. You will always get at least 45 minutes with me and you may regularly get more time than that. The additional time is at my discretion. I find most clients who work with me at some point or another need a few extra minutes. At times, ending discretely at 45-50 minutes might be discompassionate or even unhelpful to a client at times. I intend to show up being fully present, engaged, and wholly attentive to your issues and might take an extra minute to be able to do that.

Through your client portal, my email at sturley@peak-psychology.com, or my phone 435.879.7897.

The portal or email are usually preferred and more expedient. You will see that on therapy days, I do not pick up or answer my phone while in session with you, nor will I for other clients.

These should be fairly infrequent and for things like “I just found out I have Stage IIIb Breast Cancer and am losing it” or “My partner just asked for a divorce, I have to see you sooner.” Please reach out if you need me. Almost anytime that I can work you in, I will. You’ll see I’m flexible and accommodating with real need. Just understand that if I’m with other clients in their session time, there will not be an immediate response. My work week is Tuesday through Saturday; I am rarely available Sundays or Mondays.

If this is a real clinical need, then I am not likely a good therapeutic fit for you as a psychologist.  Having a center-based, mental health provider will be better, where you can have phone coaching, group, and individual support.  Having me as your therapist will likely be a dissatisfying fit. 

It is based in science, makes a difference for people, and moves one forward.  Let’s say a technique that made you feel better (like venting) but is not effective, I’m unlikely to use.

I am a Counseling Psychologist by training, not a Clinical Psychologist. This means I only see adults. It also means I have more training in issues across the life-span that apply to most humans (work, sex, aging, etc) , career counseling, multicultural issues and in my specific, case health psychology.

I consider myself a strong generalist, meaning I don’t just see specific types of people or issues – variety is very important to me. Areas where I have years of deep clinical practice: 1)Phases of life and existential issues (work, retirement, aging, death, etc), 2) Health Psychology broadly from patient issues to the providers who work in these systems; 3) Grief and loss; 4) First line professions, from responders to healthcare providers, I promote  the health of the people who respond to other people; 5) Ethics; 6) Sexuality; 7) Organizational health and functioning.

I was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ.  I’ve lived in AZ, CA, IL, MA and internationally before settling in Utah in 2007.  Prior to psychology, I was a legal secretary, worked at Intel, in banking, disability services, and lots of customer service and service industry before seriously starting my mental health career in the late 90s.  Outside of work I am often cooking, reading, volunteering, dreaming of travel, and interacting with my nearly grown humans (late teens).  Or I’m trying to engage in hobbies I probably have no business doing like skiing, mountain bike riding, hiking, and exploring nature.  I live with nearly adult children in SLC proper.  For my clinical training and credentials click here.