FAQ

Therapists at PORTAL are available to see clients in-person as well as virtually.

Please schedule a discovery call to see if we’re a good fit and to learn more about in-person sessions.

Some information on teletherapy:

Teletherapy is a virtual mental health therapy session via a HIPAA-compliant, online platform using high resolution video and audio.

To participate in teletherapy, you will need access to a reliable Internet connection and a device that supports the software on www.doxy.me.

While participating in teletherapy, please take responsibility for your surroundings by ensuring you have a private space for your sessions. Please ensure you will not be interrupted for the length of the session by planning with any family members or housemates.

Your session could take place in your bedroom, an office, your car, or any other place you feel safe, cared for, and can maintain your attention for the length of our session, as long as you have a strong and reliable Internet connection. You may prefer to wear headphones or earbuds to hear clearly and have increased privacy.

Discovery calls can be scheduled online by clicking “Schedule a Free Discovery Call Today” on the home page.

Our therapists can be available during the week between 8am-6pm, depending on the individual therapist and their working hours.

You will discuss scheduling appointments on your discovery call.

Schedule your free discovery call by clicking the pink box below.

During that call, you and our Administrative Assistant will decide if we are a good fit, and can discuss setting up your initial appointment at the end of that call.

Your first session consists of an intake and assessment, during which we will discuss your social, health and family history. 

The first session is 90 minutes.

Schedule a Free Discovery Call Today

For therapy clients, our fees are as follows:

• 20-30 minute Discovery call: free!
• 90 minute Initial Intake Appointment: $200
• 60 minute appointments with Elise Kindya, LCSW: $150 or a monthly package of $550 for 4 sessions. Other packages are available as well.
• 60 minute appointments with MSW, Supervisees in Social Work are $125 or a monthly package of $444 for 4 sessions.

PORTAL uses Square for all of appointments and payments, and accept the following forms of payment:

• All major credit cards
• Bank transfer
• HSA/FSA accounts (this also saves you $!)

We offer 60-minute and 90-minute sessions.

MSW, Supervisees in Social Work are available for appointments at a lower rate of $125 for a 60 minute appointment.

No, PORTAL Therapy does not accept insurance. If you want to submit receipts to your insurance company, we can provide receipts/superbills for you.

We do not work on the insurance end of your treatment. You may need to obtain advanced authorization from your insurance provider to ensure the sessions will be reimbursed.

Please be advised that if you use insurance, the records PORTAL Therapy keeps may be subject to review by your insurance provider. While we ensure strict confidentiality in our practice, we have no control over how your insurance company uses your information when it is in their possession. Further, some of the interventions we provide may not be covered by your insurance provider.

This is covered in detail in the Informed Consent contract you will receive when you become a client.

After our discovery call, if we decide to work together, you will fill out and sign an Informed Consent Form.

You will need to keep it accessible to you if you have questions about a specific policy.

PORTAL Therapy has several policies which we will discuss more when we decide we can work together. These include policies on confidentiality, our shared values and purpose for entering into the therapeutic alliance, payment at time of session, limited contact outside of appointments, no other relationship beside the therapeutic relationship, keeping of therapeutic records, and others.

This is a great question, and it depends on your needs and preferences.

For general support, guidance, and healing, we can work together for as long as we feel it is necessary. Many times, therapeutic alliances last for years.

Ultimately, the length of our therapeutic relationship is up to you as the client.

PORTAL Therapy presently work with adults.

In the first session, your therapist will ask you questions about your social history, as well as about your health, your family and what is currently going on with you that is bringing you to therapy.

After that, with your therapist as a guide, you get to determine what we do. We can talk about specific issues that have arisen for you during your week that relate to your Treatment Plan and goals for therapy.

Your therapist can teach you how to show up to life mindfully, or we can practice breathing in a way that calms the nervous system.

We sometimes provide “psychoeducation” to clients about trauma and stress. And, we always have book recommendations that we will discuss with you in sessions.

We can do role-plays of specific situations going on in your life. 

The important thing is that you are showing up to therapy to heal mindfully.

As social workers, we use many modalities. One of the most popular is CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is a modality that helps you connect your thinking, feelings, and behaviors.

Elise Kindya has also received advanced training and certification in trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT), which uses a traumatic event as the focus of therapy, connecting thinking, feelings, and behaviors to a specific instance or a pattern of events.

There are many tools to the trade of therapy, and we mix and match different approaches for different clients. Elise is spiritual (but not religious) and does bring a level of spiritual awareness to her work. She also incorporates EMDR, journaling, Narrative Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), energy work, Reiki, and more into treatment.

Elise believes that learning is a lifelong endeavor. She is always reading about and taking courses in different modes of therapy, approaches to healing, and tools she can bring into treatment to serve her clients best. 

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a modality of therapy that uses stimulus (eye movements, light bar, therapists’ hands, or electronic sensors) to activate the right and left sides of the brain. This therapy helps people who have experienced trauma to witness the trauma from a place of reduced activation and triggering, healing their body and mind from reexperiencing trauma only as a bodily response and be able to bring language to the event.

Yes, I am actively working to process and work with my racial conditioning. I use a framework by Ruth King called Racial Affinity Groups in her book, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism From The Inside Out.

As a clinical social worker, I take what is happening in our country to heart. I want to provide the highest level of healing and care to all my clients, which includes doing my own inner work as well as social justice work.

Elise’s experiences:

Master’s in Social Work (MSW) in 2013 from Virginia Commonwealth University
License in Clinical Social Work (LCSW) in Virginia in 2017

I have completed dozens of trainings and courses, including:

• TF-CBT certification
• Reiki Master Practitioner
• Mindfulness trainings through Mindful Schools, The Innerwork Center, ACT (Awareness and Commitment Therapy) training, and others
• EMDR training
• Training in sand tray therapy, art therapy, Responsive Classroom (a social and emotional skill building framework for schools) and others
• Internal Family Systems (IFS) training

We are social workers, which means we look at a person holistically. We are interested in all levels of functioning in your life:

Biological – your physical body
Psychological – your mental health
Social – your support system
Spiritual – the etheric qualities of the human experience.

We are always wondering about all those parts of you and aim to bring them to your work in therapy.

Further, Elise believes that life is 50/50 positive and negative, and our aversion to that holds us back from living our full experience. She wants to help people see that it is not wrong that life is half positive and half negative, that accepting this fact leaves you more open to freedom from striving for perfection.

Then, you can stop giving yourself a hard time for not being perfect and start living your life to its fullest extent.

Elise- My favorites are peppermint, rose, and lavender.

I hope you will have a candle or essential oils with you in your space, to soften your surroundings, and uplift your spirits.