SERVICES
Initial Assessment
A biopsychosocial assessment will be completed via clinical interview, self report questionnaires, and behavioral observations. Initial assessments usually take 1-2 sessions to complete. For youth age 12 and under, parents/guardians will solely attend the initial session. If the child's parents are divorced, documentation outlining parents' ability to consent to treatment will need to be presented prior to meeting with the child individually.
Assessments for Puberty Suppression, Hormone Therapy and/or Gender Affirmation Surgery
These assessments are designed to assess an individual’s psychological and practical preparedness for gender affirmative treatment and to determine medical necessity. These assessments are completed in accordance with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care, 7th Ed. and are useful in helping substantiate medical necessity to receive insurance coverage. WPATH does NOT require a set number of individual sessions for these assessments but acknowledged that a sufficient number of sessions is needed to gather the necessary clinical information and address any barriers to care. The goal of these sessions is not to be a barrier to accessing care, but to be a bridge to quality care and to help an individual address any clinical barriers and plan for healthy treatment options. For individuals with limited barriers or clinical contraindications, these assessments can usually be completed within a few sessions. A collaborative framework is used throughout the assessment and documentation process.
Individual Sessions
These sessions often focus on common mental health challenges including treating depression, anxiety, and trauma. Gender affirming counseling sessions are available for individuals seeking to explore their gender or for folks who are trans or gender diverse. These sessions are often used to explore aspects of gender, processing emotions in relation to transition, exploring ways of integrating one's gender identity and expression, processing distress around an individual's sense of gender incongruence and/or dysphoria, building resilience, and addressing readiness factors for individuals in need of medically necessary gender affirming procedures (i.e. puberty suppression, hormone therapy, and/or surgery).
Family and Relationship Counseling Sessions
Family and relationship therapy sessions are aimed at helping individuals improve interpersonal dynamics and enhance understanding and affirmation within their family and intimate relationships, particularly in relation to an individual’s LGBTQ+ identity and/or gender transition. Parents will often make outreach to set up counseling services for their gender diverse or trans child. Most, if not all counseling services for parents of gender diverse or trans youth are with the parents. The focus of this work is to assist parents in creating an affirmative environment to support their child in experiencing a healthy gender development. Parents will learn how to be an advocate for their child within their family, school environment, and in the community.
Clinical Consultation and Training Services
Clinical Consultation and training services are available for professionals and workplaces, particularly in relation to providing Trans and LGBQ+ affirming workplaces and/or clinical care. Therapists who are seeking consultation to better support trans and gender diverse (TGD) individuals and/or their family members are encouraged to send an email to info@synchronicity-counseling.com.
Referral Services
Referrals will be made on a case-by-case basis based on the clinical needs of each individual.