Your First appointment
First Steps
The following information is important to review prior to your appointment. If you are looking to schedule an appointment, you can first schedule a brief phone consultation at 303.834.1026 or info@birchpsychology.com.
Before Your First Appointment:
Note the location and date of your appointment. Our offices are located at:
950 N. Logan Street, Suite 101, Denver, CO 80203 ANd
6881 S Holly Cir, Suite 205, Centennial, CO 80112
The Contact Us page provides contact information, parking instructions, and general directions. It is highly recommended that this information be reviewed.
Complete/SUBMIT paperwork SENT TO YOU BY YOUR CLINICIAN. these forms may be electronically completed via emails sent to you.
Review the payment process and our fees. Click here.
Understand the process:
Therapy: The initial appointment (of adult, couple or child & family services) is intended for introductions, receipt of background information, and to gain a sense of the fit with your clinician. For child and family therapy, the initial appointment is generally attended by parents only. Following the initial appointment, two to three consultation appointments take place on a weekly basis. This series of appointments is concluded with a therapy planning appointment which establishes the goals of therapy. For child group therapy, the initial parent appointment is followed by weekly child group sessions along with two parent feedback appointments (one occurring midway through the group's process and one occurring at the end).
Assessment: The assessment process begins with an interview appointment (for children, this is attended only by parents). This appointment establishes the assessment question (what the process is intended to help answer), and the assessment plan (including scheduling of the assessment appointments, and establishing the cost). The series of assessment appointments can take between 2 to 4 weeks and is then followed by a feedback appointment (for children, this is attended only by parents). Child feedback is provided after review with parents. The final report follows the feedback appointments. The feedbacks and the report include the recommendations (initially discussed and collaborated upon with all stakeholders and then formalized and included in the final report). For brief assessments (or IQ only/admissions testing) the only appointment is the testing appointment.
Important Message Regarding Admissions Testing: It is important to ignore any pressures/suggestions to study for IQ testing (or to help a child study). Doing so will skew the data and lead to invalid results. Children often disclose previous exposure to materials which forces an assessor to either discontinue testing or to denote this in the final report (as an ethical obligation).
For collaborative educational consulting services/assessments:
For the "Building Blocks +" package, the feedback appointment is attended by both the psychologist and the educational consultant. All other components parallel the general assessment process.
For Educational Planning and Gifted & Talented Planning packages, the feedback is provided via formal report and reviewed with the educational consultant during the school placement consult. Families can follow up with the psychologist if needed or suggested. These services are geared more heavily toward educational consulting, and do not rely on a formal interview process either (rather, only a review of collected background information).
Consultation services vary depending on needs.
Please Know →
...that a first appointment (whether for yourself, your child, or your family) is an opportunity to gain a sense of the fit with your clinician, and to introduce yourself to our practice.
...there is information on how to talk to kids about starting therapy...
...there is also information on how to talk to kids about starting an assessment...
...that most people experience hesitation and reluctance to begin therapy. It's normal!
...it can feel very overwhelming to share your story in a short amount of time.
...It will take several sessions before it feels okay to be vulnerable.
...It will also take several sessions to feel connected to your therapist.
...therapy can feel one-sided. It will take time to get used to that.
...for children, therapy involves play and activities. This is because, developmentally, children cannot rely on verbal skills as heavily as adults do.
...Also, play therapy is known to be the primary method that young children communicate thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
...therapy is 50 minutes.
...for the most part, therapy is weekly.
...attending consistently is important. Therapy appointments are generally scheduled for the same time and day, week to week.
...therapy can feel like hard work.
...there is a wait room, sometimes you'll see others waiting for their own appointment.
...water, snacks, and bathrooms are available.