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A: Dr. Frey began doing custody and visitation consultations for the Superior Court in the early 90’s.  In court, one side wins and the other loses. The postings in question are from people who lost (or won, but still felt they lost) and who want some type of revenge or retribution. There are also postings on those sites that were never involved with Dr. Frey or the Augusta Judicial Circuit at all. Some people just have a cause and want to take down anyone they can. The sites have been active since around 2007. Dr. Frey is still here, still practicing (much to their dismay), and still being referred cases by all the attorneys and judges he has worked with throughout that time. We can make a lot of lawyer jokes but one thing is for sure: they are smart. If Dr. Frey was untrustworthy or was biased in any way, the Court and the attorneys would have stopped using him years and years ago. So, yes, he is trustworthy in all areas of practicing psychology. 

A: 1) In regard to clinical services such as psychotherapy, Dr. Frey believes that the privacy and confidentiality of the therapeutic relationship is paramount. Anytime a person accesses insurance benefits, paperwork and computer records are generated that can ultimately be seen by many eyes: HR and medical office employees, EOB’s that go to spouses, medical bureaus, government agencies, and even credentialing services. Licensing boards, certification agencies, government bodies, investigational organizations, and just “plain old prying eyes” are potential users of this type of information. Plus, diagnoses stay on our records for a long time and can impact decisions about our future for many years. Individuals in sensitive or high-profile positions, those who depend on being recertified by licensing boards, people who have top secret clearances, or who simply don’t trust “big brother” with this information, often want to keep mental health contact information to themselves.  Dr. Frey has too much respect for privacy and confidentiality to allow third party payers to have access to this information.

2) The forensic services offered by Dr. Frey are not covered under most medical plans. Forensic psychological services are legal services and not medical services. They are not conducted to provide psychological or behavioral health care but to assist the Court in dealing with issues it is attempting to resolve—even if there is no formal court order presented. Remember, health insurance companies only reimburse for psychiatric diagnoses that are under treatment. So when two parents are receiving “co-parenting counsewling,” one of them has to meet criteria in the paperwork for depression, anxiety, or some type of so-called “adjustment” disorder for reimbursement to occur. It is wise to be cautious of providers offering these services without a court order and who believe they are doing “counseling.”

It is actually committing fraud to bill insurance companies for court-ordered services such as psychological evaluations, co-parenting sessions, custody/visitation evaluations, or any other court-ordered intervention. Beware of any professional who accepts third party payments for these services as it suggests they do not know what they are doing.  

A: No. Dr. Frey primarily sees and works with parents in situations in which a child is under the age of 11. A large percentage of childhood problems relate to the environment in which the child is being raised. Parents who can't say no, grandparents who interfere with discipline, power struggles, parental self-doubt, and anxiety are often part of the picture. These issues are just more efficiently dealt with by working with parents. Dr. Frey also believes in most cases that parents make better therapists for their children than he does. 

A: Yes. The "trick" is to develop a therapeutic relationship around working with both spouses, even if one refuses to come in. This is effectively done with Dr. Frey's Family/ Systems approach to therapy. He can help a spouse develop more understanding of the problem from the absent spouse's perspective, can help change interactions, and provide ways of seeing the issues from a broader perspective. So individual therapy doesn't always have to lead to divorce.

A: Yes. Longer term therapy deals with personality change and underlying issues from our childhoods and adolescences. Often individuals with relationship addictions or substance abuse addictions need a longer term approach. However, even in longer term cases, Dr. Frey tries to move the client to every-other-week appointments as soon as possible. This is because he believes, after years of observation, that 80% of therapy takes place in the real world and the other 20% takes place in his office. He wants people to have the real world experiences to bring in to the office and believes that weekly therapy can hinder that by shutting down conflicts, disagreements, and other uncomfortable situations that clients have to navigate in order to change.