Frequently Asked Questions

Counseling sessions are 50 minutes long and since COVID have been offered exclusively through online video sessions or phone sessions, with video sessions being highly preferred. Most of our communication as humans is non-verbal so being able to have that video interaction with his clients, allows Jon to pick up on subtle cues that would otherwise go missing in a phone conversation. That being said, phone calls are an acceptable form of working together if it is an absolute necessity. 

Generally speaking, a counseling session will start with Jon asking you what’s going on in your life and what you want to work on so that realistic goals can be discussed. 

Then drawing from thousands of clients and over a decade of experience, Jon uses a variety of tools to help his clients move closer to that goal. Oftentimes, these sessions go over different techniques for helping people understand things about their own personality or their partners, ways to resolve conflict, techniques for embodying cognitive concepts, and much more. 

What it feels like from the client’s perspective is a conversation with someone who is an expert in the field giving comforting, actionable advice that you can use to transform your life.

1 on 1 counseling sessions with a counselor, coach, or therapist have an enormous impact when there is a good match of the client to the therapist. There are as many ways to practice counseling as there are counselors. Each and every person offering counseling has a different approach and personality that may or may not resonate with you on a personal level.

However, when a good match is made and you are with a therapist who gets you and knows how to help you achieve your goals what you can expect is often a rapid transformation in your life.

You’ll be able to better understand your own interpersonal relationships and how to resolve conflicts, grow closer to friends and loved ones, gain confidence in all aspects of your life, and find an inner peace that reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.

The best way to ensure that you are choosing the right counseling provider is to express what you want out of the relationship and gauge the response of your counselor. How does their approach align with what you want to get out of counseling? Does their speciality fit the issue(s) you are dealing with currently? Do you like them personally and appreciate their way of communicating? Does their energy level make you feel comfortable or even inspired? Are they able to explain terms and ideas in a way that makes sense to you? These are all questions you should be asking yourself at the conclusion of your first session or even during an initial discovery call with your potential counseling provider.

There are two things you should to make the most out of your counseling. The first is to be honest and transparent with your counselor. The more your counselor knows about what’s going on in your head and what relevant background information they need to know the better they can serve you. If you withhold information about your upbringing, relationships, addiction, fears, etc. you are essentially handicapping the possibility of real growth. It may be a bit shocking to some of you reading this, but it’s not uncommon for a counselor to work with someone for weeks, months or even years before they find out that the client has been hiding vital information that changes the entire trajectory of their approach to working with that client.

Keep in mind that therapy or counseling is for you. By hiding any pertitent details about your life from your counselor, you are only hunting yourself in the process.

The second thing you should do when trying to leverage the most out of your therapy is getting clear about your goals and making sure you and your counseling provider stay on track. It’s very easy to get sidetracked when unloading all the different stresses of your life to your counselor, but being able to redirect your attention back to what you really want to accomplish is a good way to make bigger strides in your sessions.
While counselors will occasionally try to redirect you back to your goal, they are also their to listen and see if something else needs attention so they will often let you lead the session and if you get off topic, many counselors will simply allow you to express any issues you want during that session which might not be what you wanted. If, however, you need a session where you’re just airing out grievances then by all means, use the session that

Yes. Counseling works for everyone provided you find the right counselor. Jon has worked with people in their sixties who swore up and down that therapy and counseling was all balogna and that they would never see the point in it only to walk away feeling empowered on how to see change in their life. The best way for you to make sure that counseling will work for you is to get clear about your goals and then get clear on whether the person you are working with feels like they can actually help you reach those goals. The first session is usually critical in deciding whether you feel like the provider is a good fit for you so be clear to voice any concerns you might have about the relationship before the end of your session.

This is different for everyone depending on why you have sought out counseling and what you are looking to get out of it. Generally speaking, therapy and counseling is only as effective as you allow it to be. Some people go to therapy, complain about their lives for 50 minutes and all the advice and guidance that they are given goes in one ear and out the other. If, however, you take the guidance and tools you are given in counseling to heart and implement them, you can expect to gain an enormous amount of confidence in understanding yourself and interpersonal relationships when you are finished with counseling.

That being said, most people do find it helpful to come back to counseling from time to time. That might mean coming back for a session once every few months or once every few years, it really depends on any triggers or life transitions that may come your way.

There is no set time for counseling to work. Some clients really just need one or two sessions to get some clarity while some clients find that having weekly sessions is a great benefit for several months. Generally, Jon has found that most clients see radical transformation within 10 sessions and has, in fact, developed programs around a 10-session structure.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, most insurance panels will grant you 10 sessions after an initial diagnosis as that has proven to be a length of time for the vast majority of cases to see a significant change and deal with most issues.

Of course, this is dependent on you as the client doing the internal work to make the changes in your life within that timeframe. Some people work a bit slower and some work a bit faster.

Many of the techniques and approaches Jon utilizes are brazen and are in fact not permissible for psychologists or social workers to use as they are too direct.

If you’ve been in therapy where you felt like not much was happening from session to session you will be surprised by the amount of change that can happen with a forward-thinking counselor like Jon Dabach.

That being said, personalities still have to align. If you’re not the type of person who wants to see significant change and is ready to explore things that have previously been uncomfortable for you, it might not be the right fit for you.

In an initial consultation call, Jon will learn about your life and where you are coming from, explain a little about how he would approach working with you and gauge if it’s a good fit for both of you. The best way to think about the initial conversation is to treat it like a conversation with a good friend who just happens to have fantastic advice. The more at ease you are the better impression you will get for what it’s like to work with Jon.

An initial counseling session is not that much different from any other session with Jon with the exception of getting a little more information about your own life background. Obviously, when starting a new relationship with anyone (whether therapeutic in nature or not) there is a bit of a learning curve to understand where you are coming from.

Luckily, with Jon, he is able to extract a lot of pertinent information from his clients in a relatively short amount of time so not much time is wasted on you rehashing everything. Occasionally though, first sessions might extend over the typical 50 minutes if necessary.

Ongoing sessions happen as frequently as once a week or as infrequently as is necessary to accommodate your schedule and sometimes for budget constraints. All of our sessions are virtual and done via video conferencing so joining is quite easy from any computer or mobile phone. Some clients even conference in from their car during a lunch break. While that isn’t always the best approach, as long as you have a quiet place to meet and discuss your issues without distractions, that is usually all that is required.

At the end of every session Jon will ask you if you’d like to schedule another session and usually schedule it in the last minute or two of your session.

No. You’re more than welcome to lie on a couch if you’d like to and prop a webcam or your laptop open if that’s what you’d prefer but the old analyst days of someone lying on a couch and spilling their thoughts out for an hour while someone just took notes and said nothing for an hour are pretty much over. There was a time when people would meet an analyst several times a week and lie on a couch and just talk and talk but that has proven to be ineffective as a means of therapy.

While lying on a couch is totally fine if that’s the way you’d prefer to speak but I find that it just makes my clients tired so I don’t usually recommend it.

You don’t have to talk about your childhood at all if you don’t want to. Often in relationships and the way we interact with others we find that there are patterns that have emerged as a result of the way we were raised. Jon is focused on forward movement so there are never long conversations and diatribes about the way your family worked but sometimes it is helpful to understand how love and affection were or weren’t expressed in your home growing up to understand the patterns that have emerged in your life that you are now carrying into your current relationships.

What this typically sounds like in a session is Jon asking you “did your parents hug and kiss you often?” If the answer is yes or no that’s usually the end of the conversation. If, however, there is more that you would like to explore about your childhood then that is definitely your prerogative as a client as these sessions are about your goals and desires and if you want clarity on something that is still bothering or confusing you about your childhood than bringing it up for discussion would be completely appropriate.

No. Insurance does not yet recognize life coaching or relationship coaches as a reimbursable expense at this time. Additionally, Jon does not recommend going through insurance to his own friends and family when considering classic therapy. Generally speaking, insurance provides a lot of red tape and there is a serious shortage of qualified therapists in the country currently which makes the wait time and quality of care provided through most insurance companies pretty frustrating.

Finally, in order to qualify for insurance, most companies do require that the practitioner label you with a diagnosis in order to perform treatments and these labels can have serious repercussions on future health care, life insurance, and other areas of life.

If it is at all possible for you to pay out of pocket, Jon highly recommends that whether you are going to be working directly with him or not that you explore seeking out the best provider and just pay out of pocket. Unlike a surgeon, the cost of a great therapist or counselor is usually within most people’s means, and going private has anecdotally been much more effective for the clients that Jon has seen.