I am currently seeing a student therapist with the Gronowski Center. She is both compassionate and professional. This treatment is occurring under an academic/scientific auspice, which means that paperwork/questionnaires cut into the time a bit. That is my only objection.
UNPROFESSIONAL & DISORGANIZED
First I questioned the need for a 2hr assessment but was willing to go thru with it due to thoroughness I was told it would provide. Another part that wasn't too favorable for me was the fact that these were "student therapist" only there until June, but offered a sliding scale and were under supervision of a doctor. Didn't realize a school association so seems I came in right before spring break and had no help while school was closed. (Seen other trainees & interns in other centers and have never had this experience.)
Disorganized scheduling caused the director to give me a call directly and apologize for everything. I explained my situation what I was looking for and I told her my frustrations that I needed to make sure this would be a good person to be with. She told me she had the perfect intern for me to meet with and was going to set up a time for us to get together.
Because of further scheduling mix up, we were not able to do any of the assessments, so Zack told me graciously that he would allow me to have another 2hr session at no charge but it wouldn't happen till they came back from Spring Break!
Eventually, we finished another 2hr assessment & me explaining my life situation. He said he uses video tapes to review the notes prior to each session and talks with his director in between. I was anxious to find out what the assessment would tell so I could start my therapy. The next time was to be our first session. During this session however, I wanted to share with him some of my journaling because it was very important to where I'm going with my healing. He seemed rushed and distracted by time, not managing the time well, knowing that I brought all this information in for me to share with him & mentioned it at the beginning of our session. (I also brought in a brochure from a class I want to take at a church & asked him to share it with his director so that she could determine if this would be good for me. He said he would.)
When I returned for my very 1st session, he wanted me to fill out another 2 forms & SPIED ON ME to know when I'd finished! After that it seemed as though it got worse...
- He asked, "What do want to talk about?" after I just spent OVER TWO 2hr sessions previously explaining why I was there! so I asked him about the assessments. He said he would give me the results in a little bit. (We never did get to those.)
- I asked him if he had shown the brochure to this director and found out some feedback if she thought it was a good course for me to take. He said that he did it would talk to me later about that. Come to find out, he never did talk to her! HE LIED to me about it! That infuriated me and I told him, "Its hard to trust when you do things like that."
- He then proceeded to talk about something, and when it came time for me to share my journal he told me we had EXACTLY 1MIN.! He KNEW I wanted to share that and that I had to really deep things in it come out since the last time we had met that I wanted to go over with him. He did not keep track of the time & I thought my session went longer. I left feeling frustrated and angry and that I couldn't trust him! I was in tears.
LEAVING, I went to the front office to speak to the director. Of course not available. I asked them to have her please call me so I could look at getting another therapist. They said she would and she never did.
So, just now I called the office and spoke to someone again and asked him the same thing told them to have the doctor call, NOT ZACK. Instead ZACK called me back and tried to talk to me about making an appointment with HIM to talk about things! I said only if you will not charge me for my session will I come in and have a meeting. He refused. I asked to speak to his director and he said, "She is not your therapist, I am." I told him I wanted another therapist, and he told me that wasn't not possible!
I do not recommend this place to anybody one way shape or form! There is no accountability or professionalism. Try JFK.
I do not recommend this place. My therapist was unorganized and unexperienced therefore not professional at all. She would raise her voice when she did not agree with me. She started our appointment 10 to 15 mn late 80% of the time. The cherry on top of the cake is that they did not record all my cash payments (they take only check or cash) so to my surprise when I finally stoped the therapy they sent me an invoice for $475 that I will now need to dispute.
The supervisor cant deal with cases that are a little complicate.
She doesn't do her job of teaching new students how to do therapy.
The avarage level of therapy is not helpful.
I was a client for just over 4 months, couples therapy, and our therapist was phenomenal. And although it turned out that my ex was lying the entire time, I still took a lot away from our sessions. I'm now about to begin individual therapy, and I'm certain it'll just as helpful as the couples therapy was for me.
When I was an emigrant, the young people who treated me were very professional and supported me a lot.
Now I live in my country and I am very happy, I have a good memory of the center.
Greetings from Quito-Ecuador
In my opinion this place is not very good. However they have a sliding fee scale and it was very cheap for me so I guess I got what I paid for.
My intern was named ANNA and she was not very professional. She would begin the sessions by asking 'what is important to talk about?', which in my opinion is a way to cop out of the Socratic Method, which is the cornerstone of therapy. She would often ask erroneous questions which would lead us to tangents, thus wasting precious time. I told her about some challenges I was grappling with and she said she would help me devise a plan or formulas to start tackling them, but then never did.
She never took any notes. She acted very interested until I was asked to complete a survey to rate her performance, in which I gave quite high marks, and then her performance began to slide. It was almost as if she was going through the motions to hit the 50 minute mark as smoothly as possible.
After one of the sessions she mentioned how much money she could make after finishing the program. She would ask hypothetical questions that were a bridge to nowhere. She would ask me how I felt about a certain issue and when I replied she would correct me and tell me I was being judgemental instead of expressing feelings.
Finally, during the last session, for reasons I still can't figure out, she stopped talking and gave me a smug, blank stare for about 45 seconds. If you do go here as a patient, I don't recommend ANNA.
gronowskicenter.org
