I have been receiving medical care and dental care at Third Street Family Health, often referred to as the Third Street Clinic, for several years now. I consider the medical care and dental care there to be excellent. If you want affordable medical care or dental care in Mansfield, it’s a great place to go. They even offer a sliding scale if your income is low and you have no health insurance.
The Third Street Clinic also now offers behavioral health services, such as counseling. I decided to seek counseling there after the psychologist I’d seen elsewhere for many years retired. I’d contacted some other agencies that offer counseling and found that they had lengthy waiting lists, but Third Street Family Health was able to see me soon after I made the initial phone call. I was very pleased with that, because of course people are likely to seek counseling when they are struggling a lot with some emotional issues and it’s simply not reasonable to expect them to wait six months until they can see a counselor.
Unfortunately, when I saw a counselor at the Third Street Clinic, it was not a good experience. In fact, I ended up seeing two different counselors there and having two different negative experiences.
When I saw the first counselor, my teenage nephew, who has a lot of behavioral problems, was living with me. Then he had to move because his behavior problems were too severe for me to cope with. During a subsequent counseling session at which my partner was also present, he explained to the counselor that my nephew had been verbally and emotionally abusive towards both of us, but especially abusive towards me.
For some reason, the counselor seemed to find that funny. She giggled. She said, “He sure was a handful!” She seemed completely insensitive to the way the abuse had affected me. She thought it was funny, but of course verbally and emotional abuse is no laughing matter. In fact, verbal and emotional abuse by a family member is a form of domestic violence, and domestic violence is never funny.
Besides being shocked that a professional counselor would laugh when told a client had suffered domestic violence and abuse, I was then afraid to be open with her about some other issues I needed help dealing with. I experienced pretty severe abuse as a child, but since she thought it was funny that I was abused by my nephew, would she think it hilarious that I’d been abused as a child?
So I asked to see a different counselor. By that time, I was really in crisis. I was severely depressed, struggling to work (I am a freelance writer), thinking of suicide. When I described the severity of my depression to the new counselor, she told me that thinking was suicide was “unintelligent.” She didn’t empathize with me, she didn’t encourage me to share more about how I was feeling and she didn’t seemed alarmed or take any measures to make sure I would be safe during this time of crisis.
When I told her how I was having trouble writing and I was very concerned about that, she said I should try writing haiku instead of articles because haiku are short and I wouldn’t have to concentrate as much. It’s true that haiku are short, but I write a lot of poetry and haiku are not that easy to write. Beyond that, I had an editor that wanted articles by a deadline. What did the counselor expect me to do, call up my editor and suggest I write some haiku instead of the 600 word articles he had requested? I thought her suggestion was silly and that it indicated she wasn’t taking my concerns or my work seriously.
I decided not to attend further counseling sessions at Third Street Family Health because I felt that the counselors there were insensitive and disrespectful and doing more harm than good. I am now seeing a counselor at another agency and I’m doing much better. I understand that people with low incomes are often limited as to where they can receive services because they simply can’t afford to pay the standard rate for counseling out of pocket, but they still deserve quality care. If you live in Mansfield, Ohio and need behavioral health services, I suggest looking for help at other agencies instead of relying on the Third Street Clinic for assistance. It’s a great place to get medical and dental care but not a good place to get counseling.