Outpatient Psychiatry & Behavioral Health

Many of our services are remote, and we have offices in North Kingstown (420 Scrabbletown Road, Suite A, N Kingstown, RI 02852) and Cranston (1170 Pontiac Ave, Cranston, RI). In addition to serving RI, we have clinicians who serve patients in CT and MA. Call 401-268-5333 to schedule a consultation today.

South County Psychiatry offers outpatient psychotherapy for a variety of diagnoses and problems in living. Therapists at SCP learn about their patients’ lives, symptoms, and the issues they are facing, as well as about patients’ values and goals.  We work with patients to help them learn ways to make room for difficult emotions in ways that are healthy, while also helping patients orient themselves toward what matters most to them in their lives. We  are committed to delivering high quality empirically supported treatments, and to translating evidence-based principles to a private practice setting.  We currently have psychologists and therapists who specialize in geriatric mental health, young adult, and adult psychotherapy.

Therapy begins with an intake evaluation.  During that evaluation, the therapist will ask questions to get to know you and your background.  Your therapist will learn about your life, the issues you are currently facing, any symptoms you have, and what you would like to accomplish in treatment.  The therapist will talk with you about the treatment they can offer, and whether that feels like a good fit for what you are looking for.  You can then decide whether proceeding with treatment makes sense for you.

Therapy meetings can be anywhere from 30 to 55 minutes.

You and your therapist will decide together what you want to work on.  If your work is targeted, therapy could be short term, for example between 8 and 16 meetings.  If you have a number of issues you want to address, it could go on longer.

Individual therapy is both practical and values driven. Therapy helps patients to identify what is most important to them, and to orient their actions toward those values.  Therapy also helps patients learn to identify and make room for their emotional experiences in ways that are both safe and relationship enhancing.  Third wave behavioral approaches to treatment guide individual outpatient therapy, including ACT, DBT, and CBT principles. We use a collaborative approach to coordinate care with other behavioral health providers both in the SCP practice and in the community.

There are typically tasks to complete between meetings that you and your therapist agree on together. The tasks are meant to help you move toward the changes you want to bring about in your life.  For example, if you are struggling with loneliness, the tasks might involve reaching out to people to connect, or identifying groups or classes that you might want to learn more about or join.

A SCID interview refers to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The SCID is a widely used diagnostic tool in clinical psychology and psychiatry for assessing and diagnosing psychiatric conditions. It provides a systematic approach to gather information about a person's symptoms and experiences, and it helps clinicians make accurate and reliable psychiatric diagnoses.

The interview consists of a series of questions that cover a wide range of psychiatric symptoms and experiences. The interviewer follows a specific format and scoring system to guide the assessment process.

SCID interviews may be used as part of the assessment and evaluation process.

South County Psychiatry accepts most major insurance carriers.

You can decide to end treatment at any time. Typically, you and your therapist will talk about what you set out to work on in therapy, the progress you are making, and whether you want to continue.