DIOCESAN NEWS
04/09/10
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Soloman center offers diverse therapies
By Fabvienen Taylor
JACKSON — The Soloman Counseling Center of Catholic Charities serves a diverse group of clients using a diverse group of therapies.
The 200 clients currently receiving counseling services run the gamut from five years of age to over 64 with income levels ranging from less than $10,000 yearly to over $80,000. No one is turned away due to income, race/ethnicity or religion.
Services are provided at a flat fee per hour and most major insurance carriers and Medicaid are accepted.
The need for affordable, comprehensive, professional counseling in the greater Jackson area led to the establishment of the Soloman center several years ago, according to Valerie McClellan, clinical director.
The center addresses the needs of children, adolescents, parents, couples and individuals. It is certified by the Department of Mental Health as a community out-patient counseling service for children, adolescents and adults.
The array of counseling services offered developed out of the counseling offered by the Office of Family Ministry in addition to staff training through Trauma Recovery for Youth (TRY), another Catholic Charities program.
The goal of TRY is to improve access to and the quality of treatment and services for children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events. It seeks to provide appropriate screening for trauma to any child in Mississippi seeking mental health care.
The Soloman center is staffed by three full-time therapists including McClellan, Louise Dillon, who also directs the Office of Family Ministry, and Diane Bramen.
Also there are four part-time therapists in the Jackson area and Father Tim Murphy, priest-in-charge at Pontotoc St. Christopher Mission, who is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) for Catholic Charities.
The Soloman center is primarily self-funded with income from fees, private insurers, Medicaid and funds from the annual Catholic Service Appeal (CSA).
In addition to Catholic Charities, the CSA collection, scheduled the weekend of May 1-2, helps fund the areas of evangelization/faith formation, campus ministry, seminarian education, retired priests/clergy assistance, and mission schools and parishes.
“One Family in Christ” is this year’s theme for the collection.
Allocations from the 2009 CSA collection are: seminarian education, $65,000; evangelization/faith formation, $140,000; campus ministry, $96,947; Catholic Charities, $456,281; retired priests/clergy assistance, $89,602; and mission parishes/schools, $110,000 totaling $956,830.
“We are especially trained to treat trauma in children, adolescents and adults, something not everyone has,” said McClellan. Soloman counselors use what are called research-based therapeutic techniques, which lead to shorter treatment terms and better outcomes for individuals and families, she said.
One well-known therapeutic technique is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
“There is a lot of research behind CBT. It looks at what we think, how we feel and our behavior. For example, if I think I can’t do something, I’m going to feel defeated and my behavior will display that. So we teach clients, mainly children and adolescents, to make changes in their thoughts and then in their behaviors so they can be more successful.
“Sometimes we refer a client to a psychiatrist, or their personal physician, if they need medication. But CBT is proven to work better than medication in mild to moderate depression,” McClellan said.
“People might need medication to make them feel better in order to do the emotional work but medication is eventually going to stop and if that person has not gone to therapy they have not learned how to do things differently, and they are going to relapse, go back to their old behaviors. In therapy people learn new things to do.”
The big issues for adults are depression and anxiety, she said. “We use CBT and again may refer them to a psychiatrist.
“For adult trauma, such as rape, we use a therapy called Cognitive Processing Therapy, which is also research-based. It is also used for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“It is comparable to Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT) done with kids in working through trauma. The difference is we assume adults know certain things that we have to teach kids.”
“TFCBT is a 12-week program. For clients who complete the whole therapy we know 85 percent of them will have alleviation of symptoms, which is pretty amazing,” said McClellan. “We have specific goals, we have a treatment plan we follow, and along the way we do assessments to see if clients are getting better or not. We can prove they get better,” McClellan said.
Other therapies are CBT in conjunction with psychiatric services, if needed; Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing; and Structured Psycho-therapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress, a group intervention for adolescents responding to chronic stress.
In addition to contact by individuals the Soloman center receives referrals from the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Attorney General’s Office of Crime Victim’s Program and the Child Advocacy Center.
“These can be victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence and community violence. We do a lot of quick assessments to measure a client’s level of stress, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, whatever is needed to find out what is going on so we can use the best treatment for that diagnosis.”
Counseling for grief is available for individuals and families dealing with issues of loss and various parenting skills classes are available.
For couples therapy, the Soloman center is guided by the 30 years of research by The Gottman Institute. Parts of that program have been integrated into the Marriage Preparation Programs offered by the Office of Family Ministry.
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