Heart and Soul Community Counseling, Inc.

My mentally and physically disabled sister collapsed and died suddenly, in my elderly mother’s arms, the day of her 50^th birthday party. I contacted Heart & Soul to try to obtain grief counseling for my mother three weeks after my sister died. I wrote a long, detailed email informing them of the situation, and asking that they provide a warm, caring therapist who could ease my mother into the idea of going to therapy, something she was very resistant to. I was assured the therapist that was recommended was a very warm and kind person and would be a good match for my mother. We walked in, I introduced my mother and myself, and the woman who was sitting at the front desk identified herself as the therapist. She did not rise, did not address my mother in any way, did not shake hands, and did not even ask how we were or express her condolences at our loss. Instead, the first thing she said was, «What is your copay?» She never once asked how we were until after she and the office manager had tracked down the copay chart, looked it up, charged me $ 20, and wrote out a receipt — that is, during the first ten minutes after we arrived. The therapist then took us down the hall to a shabby, dirty, poorly-​lit room in the back of the building and seated us on broken-​down couch looking at a filthy glass coffee table and a ripped up arm chair, and then — for the first time — put on her «therapist» voice and said, «So…your daughter died? That’s so sad.» Totally insensitive, unprofessional, unappealing, and all-​around disappointing. My mother was turned off by the whole thing, but got through the session (in which the therapist was barely participating), and then politely said that if she decided she wanted to come back, she would give them a call. Really could not believe how this was handled, given my careful and detailed email, not to mention basic common sense and courtesy. Will never go back and will discourage anyone I know from trying them.