Greetings. I am finding that I am far more effective when I am IN PERSON with clients so please only bother to continue reading if you are interested in primarily in-person treatment.
If you are reading this, you are probably a teenager or adult seeking treatment for yourself or a parent looking for treatment for your child. Welcome. In either case, please take a few minutes right now to visit other sections of the site to familiarize yourself with some basics about me and my practice, particularly the sections on Policies, Initial Sessions, and Recovery. Then, come back to this section. I noticed that I used to spend a lot of time answering questions that were readily available in those three sections so if you and your child are able to read those three before calling or emailing, it's greatly appreciated.
Welcome back. I created this section because I noticed that people understandably have no idea what kinds of information I might want to know in evaluating whether we might be a good fit. There was a lot of phone tag and days to weeks sometimes went by when headaches could have potentially been avoided. If you are considering seeing me or having your child see me, I ask you to please do the following THREE STEP PROCESS. Please do not do some of the three steps but instead do ALL of the following three steps.
The FIRST STEP is to email me (jacobtowerymd@gmail.com) with the names/emails/cell phone numbers of ALL the people who might be involved with this process. This includes you, the person who will be receiving most of the treatment (which may or may not be you), the people who would be involved in paying for the treatment. This might include your partner and/or your parents and/or your child's other parent. I believe that both parents are very important in a child's development and can have valuable input into the process so unless the other parent is deceased or hasn't been at all involved for years, please include them on this email. I have found that most adults who are paying for psychiatric treatment would like to have a general sense of who they/their child might be seeing and would also like to know who they are paying money to and if that person is competent. If you are a young adult living with your parents currently, please include both of their information on this initial email. After you (and your child if you are reaching out about your child) have completed ALL three steps, I will reach out to you and set up an initial complimentary phone call with all the "stakeholders" on the call so that I can answer everyone's questions at the same time, which is significantly more efficient.
The SECOND step of this process is for someone to answer the "Clinical Questions" (below). You can either email them to me (jacobtowerymd@gmail.com) or leave them on one or two voicemails at 650-918-6789. If you are a child under the age of 18, it is probably simpler if your parent answers these questions for you in the initial email. If you are an adult seeking treatment for yourself, please answer these questions yourself. In either case, please don't think you are done after this step and make sure to continue reading and follow through on the final step as well. Thanks!
Clinical Questions:
What is your first and last name?
How old is your child? (Note: If you are an adult calling for treatment for yourself, then everywhere that it says "your child," please just give your own information)
What is their name and gender?
Who referred you?
Where does your child live?
Are you looking for therapy, medications, both, unsure, or something else?
What diagnoses have your child been given, if any?
If your child is currently on psychiatric medication, or has been, what medicines and doses?
How much are alcohol/recreational drugs/prescription drugs part of the picture?
Any suicide attempts or cutting?
How interested or not interested is your child in getting treatment in general? Therapy?
In the event that the child is under 18 and the parents are divorced, does the other parent have any legal or physical custody? If so, how open or not open is that parent to coming in during the assessment and potentially being involved in treatment?
What's the gist of what's been going on?
You are almost done! The THIRD and final step is for the individual who would be receiving treatment (NOT their parent) to call (650-918-6789) or email (jacobtowerymd@gmail.com) me with answers to the following set of questions. I will respond via email AFTER you/your family has completed ALL three steps. Ideally, please let the person leaving the answers to the questions below do so in private so that I am more likely to get honest answers. Thank you!
Final Set of Questions:
What is your full name?
Did you read the section of the website on Recovery? If not, go back and read this now please.
How interested or not interested are you in getting treatment?
If your parents were completely neutral about you seeing me and they put zero pressure on you to see anyone for treatment, would you still want to meet with me?
Has there been a time in your life when you put several hours per week into learning something new such as a sport, a martial art, or a musical instrument? What was the longest that you participated for? When was this? How consistently or inconsistently did you put in effort?
Are you willing to do therapy homework and exercise even when you don't feel like it or are you looking for a treatment that wouldn't require these things?
Thank you for your time in answering these many questions! If I don't think we are likely to be a good fit, I now have enough information that I could offer you some wonderful referrals for what you are looking for. In the event that I think we are likely to be a fit (hopefully this is the case), I will email the appropriate people and we can set up a free 30-minute phone consultation where I can answer any questions you might have and move forward with booking an Assessment if you would like. Thank you and I look forward to speaking with you!
UPDATE: For some reason, about once every six months, the emails that people send me go into my Spam folder and I never see them. The most likely reason that you would reach out to me and not hear back quickly would be if I am on vacation, and in that case you would receive an Autoresponder message indicating that I am on vacation. However, in the unlikely event that I am in town and you complete Steps 1-3 and haven't heard from me within 3 business days, please feel fee to leave a Voicemail at 650-918-6789 as a backup plan in case your initial emails went into the Spam folder. Thanks!