Northern Illinois University
Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Our clients range in age from young children to older adults. Some of our clients are Northern Illinois University students, staff, and faculty. However, over 50 percent of our clients are residents of the community in DeKalb & its surrounding areas, including Rockford and the Chicagoland area.

We try to make our training center as similar to mental health centers, private group practices, and medical school facilities as possible, except that much more supervision occurs.

Graduate Student Therapists

As a training center, we want to assure the quality of both the services we provide to you and the education we provide to our graduate student therapists. All therapy is therefore videorecorded or observed so that proper supervision can be given. You will be required to sign a consent form which indicates your acceptance of this policy. If this is not acceptable to you, we will assist you in finding help elsewhere. You will be notified anytime that you are being observed directly.

Our graduate student therapists do not provide services until our faculty supervisors feel they have adequate skills. When they begin seeing clients, they are carefully supervised by experienced clinical psychologists. Supervisors listen to or watch the audio or video recordings of sessions, and they retain full professional and legal responsibility for the services provided. Supervision takes place in treatment teams composed of the supervisor, your graduate student therapist, and other student therapists in the PSC. This approach is our method for supervising specific cases and training our graduate student therapists in the delivery of mental health services.

At times, your therapist may delay answering some of your questions to confer with the supervisor. In this way, you will get the added benefit of the supervisor's experience.

Recordings are used by your therapist and the supervisor to plan and improve therapy. Portions of recordings may be played in treatment team meetings to help your therapist learn how best to work with you and help other therapists learn about therapy in general. They are then destroyed to prevent further replay of the therapy session.

Confidentiality

As clinical psychologists and graduate student therapists, we respect your right to privacy and confidentiality. This includes your right to choose what you wish to discuss in therapy as well as your right to have this information protected from others.

We have both an ethical responsibility and a legal duty to protect all of the information you disclose in therapy. All records are kept in locked files or in an electronic medical records. They are not released to anyone without your written permission, unless required by law.  At the end of 10 years, your records are shredded.

To ensure that you know the limits of confidentiality, here is a list of some of the exceptions found in the laws of Illinois. This list is not comprehensive and most of the exceptions will not apply to you.

• All reasonable suspicions of current child abuse or neglect must be reported to the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) immediately.
• If a client threatens to do harm to themself or others, a psychologist has a duty to try to prevent this harm. This may include contacting the person who may be in danger, a family member, the police, or a hospital.
• To ensure the quality of service given, a therapist may consult with a supervisor, attorney, or fellow staff members at the PSC. These professionals are under the same legal requirements as your therapist to protect your privacy and confidentiality.
• If you are involved in a court case and the court believes your therapy record is relevant to the case, the judge can order disclosure or inspection of your record.
• If you are under age 12 (and in some cases under age 18), if you are mentally incompetent, or if you die, your parent, guardian, or estate may have a right to your files.

In addition, you have the right to read your file and to make any additions or corrections you feel are important. We are required to make these additions a permanent part of your record. You have a right to request a copy of your file; the file itself, however, is the property of the PSC. If you wish to read or get a copy of your file, please contact the PSC directly and we can assist you. You will be charged a standard page rate for the cost of copies.

Participation in Research

The PSC routinely collects information about clients' symptoms, improvement, and satisfaction. This information is used to plan specific services for you and to evaluate the effectiveness of our services for you and other clients. These records may be used anonymously in the future for a research study, with the permission of NIU's Institutional Review Board. At no time would you be identified.

In addition, at times the PSC conducts studies for research or teaching purposes. In these cases you will be asked to participate and be provided with information about the study. You will never be included in such a study without your written consent.

Emergencies

If a problem arises that cannot wait until a regularly scheduled meeting, contact the PSC during office hours to see if an appointment can be arranged. If an emergency arises after office hours, you should call:

• Suicide Hotline: 988
• Northwestern Medicine Student Health Center: 815-306-2777 (NIU students only)
• Ben Gordon 24-Hour Crisis Line: 1-866-242-0111
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
• Kishwaukee Community Hospital Emergency Room: 1-815-756-1521, ext. 9
• The Trevor Project Crisis Line: Text START to 678678

When calling, indicate that you are currently being seen at the NIU Psychological Services Center. If you feel that you are experiencing an emergency, state that clearly during the phone call.

The PSC closes for semester break, on state and national holidays, and on Wednesdays. If there is an emergency at those times, contact one of the numbers above. Although we have voicemail and an email address, please note that these are not monitored during non-working hours.

Medical Issues

We make referrals to either university or community psychiatrists when we feel clients may benefit from medication for a biologically-related mental health problem. We try to work closely with our medical colleagues to provide you with continuity of care.

Physical or mental symptoms (such as depression, fatigue, weight gain) are sometimes caused by medical illnesses. If you have not seen a physician recently for a check-up, we urge you to do so to rule out a medical explanation and treatment for your problems.

Client Rights

What should I do if I am unhappy with my therapy?

We ask that you first raise this with your graduate student therapist, if you feel capable of doing so. Part of what makes therapy effective is the ability to discuss such matters in a therapeutic way. Sometimes, however, this may feel too threatening. In this case, the fastest and best way to get satisfaction is to talk with your therapist's supervisor and/or the PSC director. Each of these people has a responsibility to you to see that you are getting adequate therapy and protection of your rights. To arrange for such a discussion, contact the PSC director, Dr. Danielle Baran.

In addition, you may take complaints to the Illinois Psychological Association (312-372-7610) or the American Psychological Association (1-800-374-2721) which monitor the ethical practice of psychology for members of those organizations, or the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation for the State of Illinois (217-785-0800).