The Canadian Psychological Association (2021) explains that a “psychologist studies how we think, feel, and behave from a scientific viewpoint and applies this knowledge to help people understand, explain, and change their behaviour”. This means that psychologists have scientific training but are also people who apply scientific knowledge to be helpful and to educate others on why humans behave, think, and feel as we do. 

In Canada, each province has a regulatory body (i.e., College of Alberta Psychologists) and the regulatory body is in charge of regulating the profession of psychology to ensure that anyone who calls themselves a psychologist has adequate education and training to enter the profession. Once someone gains the title of a psychologist, they are required to maintain standards of practice, conduct themselves fitting with the code of ethics for psychologists, and continue their life-long learning to keep up to date on evidence-based care. 

Resources:

Canadian Psychological Association: https://cpa.ca/public/whatisapsychologist/

College of Alberta Psychologists: https://www.cap.ab.ca

https://www.cap.ab.ca/about/psychology

As a client of a psychologist you have a number of rights. Psychologists are governed by standards of practice (set by the College of Alberta Psychologists) and a code of ethics (established by the Canadian Psychological Association). Together, these inform how a psychologist provides services in a way that honour your rights and dignity as a person. I aim to:
– Respect your rights to exercise choice in your care
– Involve you collaboratively in decision making about your care, every step of the way. 
– To protect your privacy to the best of my ability and to ensure you understand the situations and circumstances where I cannot. 
– To receive care that is driven by science – that I provide care that the research has lead us to believe will be most helpful in meeting the goals you have established.
– Provide you with information that is helpful (i.e., risks and benefits) to make decisions about your next right step. 

While psychologists and psychiatrists both provide specialized services in mental health care (i.e., treatment and assessment of mental health status and conditions), they have different training pathways and skill sets. Psychologists are trained as “scientist-practitioners” and are not medical physicians. Psychiatrists are physicians who have undergone specialization in the care of mental health conditions and treatments. Because of these different training backgrounds, psychiatrists are uniquely positioned to understand how medical conditions and mental health overlap and to discuss medication options that may be appropriate treatments. Psychologists are not able to prescribe medication and are not medical physicians (i.e., they cannot prescribe medication, they cannot order blood tests, etc.). Both psychologists and physicians are able to provide diagnoses for mental health conditions – though not all psychologists will assess and provide diagnoses (depending on their specific training background). 

Resources:

Canadian Psychological Association: https://cpa.ca/public/whatisapsychologist/

Canadian Psychiatric Association: https://www.cpa-apc.org

These are two types of services that psychologists may be trained to provide. While Dr. De Boer is trained to provide both of these services, she only provides psychological treatment in her private practice. 

Psychological Intervention (treatment/therapy/counselling): the purpose of this service is to support an individual, group, or couple to meet a goal that is established near the start of a therapeutic relationship. These goals can include: enhancing wellbeing, preventing burnout, learning to make changes to behaviour, maintaining behaviour changes etc. The part that makes intervention “psychological” is that it is based on research evidence that suggests that the strategies the psychologist employs will bring the individual closer to their goal. 

Psychological Assessment: the purpose of this activity is to help provide a clearer picture or explanation pertaining to  a specific question that an individual/group of individuals may have about a person’s mental, emotional, or behavioural functioning. A psychologist will gather information from a range of sources and means (i.e., interviewing, reviewing relevant records, use of psychological tools and instruments) in order to best answer the question that has been posed. While these questions can range, some of the questions psychologists can be trained to help provide some understanding about include: Do I have ADHD? Does my mother have dementia? Why is my child having difficulties with learning?  Often a psychological assessment involves some recommendations about how to use this information to better a person’s life or functioning. 

If you are transitioning from a different practice, please complete the contact form on the contact page  to indicate your interest in services and Dr. De Boer will reach out to you to explain your options for continuing your scheduling with her. 

If you are new to working with Dr. De Boer, welcome and she hopes that this information might be helpful in assisting you to decide what might be the next right step for you. The steps to getting started with Dr. De Boer often look something like this

1. You (the client) indicates their interest in services by leaving a message through the contact page on this website or calling and leaving a message for Dr. De Boer to indicate that they are interested in learning more about starting therapy.

2. Dr. De Boer responds to the inquiry by setting up a time to connect for a discovery call. She will generally try to give you an indication of the earliest appointment she could offer so that you have a sense of what her wait time is at the time of your inquiry.

3. In the discovery call, which usually takes about 20-30 minutes of your time, you and Dr. De Boer get a chance to discuss what you are looking for from therapy, discuss questions you have about therapy with Dr. De Boer, and she gets a chance to ask a few questions about you and provide some further information about her services.  

This call usually ends in one of several ways: booking an appointment together, a plan to think about what was discussed and get back to you with some ideas, Dr. De Boer providing recommendations on other psychologists or clinicians who might be a better fit.

4. If you and Dr. De Boer decide to book a first appointment together, you will collaboratively decide if a virtual appointment or in-person appointment is more appropriate. Prior to the appointment, Dr. De Boer will send out registration forms (look in your email inbox for a sender called Ocean Cognisant MD) to complete (i.e., your contact information, emergency contact, date of birth, etc.). She will invite you to the client portal (Medeo) where you will be able to send her secure messages, schedule further appointments, and receive invoices for sessions. She will also send out a reminder and any further instructions of what you need to do on the day of the appointment. 

5. On the day of your appointment, you can expect that the appointment will start out by confirming a few details and maybe a bit of a welcome to the therapy office (virtual or in-person). If you are in-person she might offer you a cup of water or tea. You are invited to bring with you anything you might need to feel comfortable in the session (slippers, comfortable clothing to wear, a snack, a note pad and pen, if you are on a virtual call you might want a cup or water and/or some tissues near by). Dr. De Boer often asks if she can start the session by “giving a run down of what to expect”. 

One of her responsibilities is to make sure that both of you have a conversation that will allow you to provide “informed consent” to participate in the session. What does informed consent mean? To Dr. De Boer, she wants her clients to be as equipped as possible with information about their rights as clients, what psychologists are responsible for, how she will protect your rights, what her limitations are in protecting your right to privacy, and how you and her can collaborate to have a respectful working relationship. A link to her informed consent Q&A page which includes the majority of that information is included below.

The other goal that Dr. De Boer is aiming for in that first meeting is to establish a human relationship with you. She wants to know what is important to you, what is not working well in your life, what you are succeeding at, what you want to do better at, who you care about, and how you are suffering in your life at this time. While she will not be able to learn all of that in the first meeting, it is her hope to start to get a sense with you of some of the ways that psychological services can help you shift or change (i.e., change the way you think, change the way you act, change how you respond when you feel certain emotions, how you respond to the behaviours of others) in the future. 

The important thing that Dr. De Boer hopes clients know when starting work with her is that you cannot mess up the first appointment. However you show up, whatever conversation happens is the start of the work! You do not have to share everything with her – you get to choose how much or how little you tell her. You can pass on any question she asks knowing that you can always come back to it in the future if you want to. You can share as much of what you have been holding on to and she will hold it with you or let you know if she needs to pace things differently with you to keep up. 

Sometimes people will feel tired at the end of the first session or feel a bit more emotionally worked up as they have shone a light on somethings that they have not talked about or thought about in some time. Dr. De Boer recommends that if you are not sure how the first appointment might go for you, to book some time after the first appointment just to take care of yourself – you might need a nap, a walk, want to have some time with loved ones. 

Informed Consent

Dr. De Boer follows the recommended fee scheduled proposed by the Psychologist’s Association of Alberta. 

As of Jan.2024 the rate is $220.00/ 50 Minute session + 10 Minutes of Documentation

As of Jan.2022 Dr. De Boer does not direct bill to insurance companies. She is able to provide you with a receipt for psychological services rendered which you can then submit to your insurance company for reimbursements you may be eligible for. It can be helpful prior to your first appointment to call your insurance provider to inquire about what coverage you may have in your benefits for psychological services provided by a registered psychologist. 

Dr. De Boer provides services on Tuesdays between 9am and 5pm and Fridays between 9am and 5pm. If you are interested in services for evenings or weekends, those are not currently available at Curious Paradox Psychological Inc.

You do not need a referral to initiate a request for services. By sending an email through the contact form you can start the process of seeing if Dr. De Boer is the right psychologist for your needs. In other words, you can self-refer for psychological services.

Indeed there is a cancellation policy and a fee for late cancellations and no-shows! Dr. De Boer typically reviews this policy within the first few sessions of therapy but in general, if you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, Dr. De Boer asks for 24 hours notice. If you give 24 hours notice, there is no fee for cancelling your appointment.  In situations where an unforeseen emergency or safety concern interferes with you attending your appointment, exceptions will be made on a case by case basis to this policy 🙂

The reality is that there will come a time in most relationships where one or both parties are not satisfied with every part of the relationship and in psychological treatment that can also be the case. 

Sometimes people are not satisfied with the “fit” with their therapist and in those cases, Dr. De Boer is able to offer recommendations for other providers who may have different strengths and qualities that would be helpful for you. One size does not fit all and thus, we can’t expect that one psychologist will work for everyone equally well. 

Sometimes, there is something that Dr. De Boer can change in order to make treatment a better and more effective experience for you. She understands that sometimes providing that feedback can be challenging and she will do her best to ensure she is checking in with you to see if your goals are being met through the work you are doing together. 

Also – if you feel very unsatisfied with treatment, are not able to address these concerns directly with Dr. De Boer, and want to make a complaint about the services you have received, you are able to submit your concerns about Dr. De Boer to the College of Alberta Psychologists.  For more information about the complaints process please see the following link: College of Alberta Psychologists – Concerns