NO SURPRISES

Divorce Therapy Rates and Frequently Asked Questions

Here's what it costs, before you have to ask.

Most therapist websites make you email to find out what a session costs. I've never understood that. You're making a real financial decision and you should be able to do the math before you talk to anyone.

So here it is, all of it. Then the questions people actually type into their phones at eleven at night, which is who the rest of this page is for.

Rates

Initial intake, new clients

$250

60 minutes

Individual session

$250

60 minutes

Individual session

$200

45 minutes

Individual session

$175

30 minutes

PACKAGE OF 5 $875

PACKAGE OF 10 $1,600

Packages include a guaranteed weekly time slot. Consistency is most of what makes therapy work.

Not ready for any of that? The Sayra C Method is a self-guided program for $107. See what's in it →

CHOOSING A SESSION LENGTH

Which session length

Most people book 60 minutes, especially early on, because there's a lot to get through and rushing it wastes the hour. Forty-five works well once you're established and moving through material steadily. Thirty is for maintenance, check-ins, or a specific problem you want to work on without opening everything else.

If you're not sure, book 60. We can adjust once we know what we're doing.

THE HONEST VERSION

Why I don't take insurance

IT REQUIRES A DIAGNOSIS

To bill your plan I'd have to give you a mental health diagnosis and put it in your permanent record. Divorce isn't a disorder, and I'm not going to invent one so a company will pay.

IT DECIDES HOW LONG YOU GET

Plans authorize a set number of sessions and review whether you still qualify. I'd rather answer to you than to a utilization reviewer.

IT READS YOUR FILE

Anything I document can be requested. Being out of network means what happens in your sessions stays between us.

That's the tradeoff. You pay more directly, and you get therapy that isn't shaped by a third party.

GETTING MONEY BACK

What out of network actually means for you

Many plans reimburse a meaningful portion of out-of-network therapy, and most people never find out because checking is annoying.

A SUPERBILL AFTER EACH SESSION

An itemized receipt with everything your insurer needs. You submit it, they reimburse you directly, often 40% to 80% depending on your plan and deductible.

A GOOD FAITH ESTIMATE

Under the No Surprises Act you're entitled to a written estimate of costs before you start. Every client gets one, and you can ask for it before booking.

CHECK WHAT YOUR PLAN WOULD REIMBURSE

Takes about a minute. This does not bill your insurance. It checks what your plan pays back for seeing an out-of-network provider.

STRAIGHT ANSWERS

Questions people ask about divorce therapy

Most people find this part of the page at eleven at night, in bed, having typed something into their phone they'd never say out loud. That's who I wrote it for. You don't need to have decided anything.

01 COSTS, INSURANCE & PAYMENT

  • No. Sayra C Therapy is private pay and out of network. I provide a superbill you can submit for reimbursement, and many plans cover a portion. If being in network is essential for you, most therapist directories let you filter by plan, which is the fastest way to find someone.

  • Use the benefits tool above, which takes about a minute. Or call the member number on your card and ask three questions: do I have out-of-network outpatient mental health benefits, what's my out-of-network deductible and how much have I met, and what percentage of the allowed amount do you reimburse for CPT code 90837.

  • An itemized receipt with the diagnosis code, service code, date, fee, and my license information. It's what your insurance needs to reimburse you. Worth knowing: a superbill still requires a diagnosis, so if you'd rather not have one on file, you can skip submitting it entirely and pay privately.

  • Packages cost less per session and hold a guaranteed weekly slot. Paying as you go gives you flexibility. Most people start session by session and move to a package once they know the work is landing, which is a reasonable order to do it in.

  • Private-pay rates in South Florida typically run somewhere between $150 and $300 a session depending on the clinician's experience and specialty. Rates here sit in that range. In-network sessions cost less out of pocket but come with the constraints described above.

  • I do offer a reduced rate for teen clients and for students, because those are the people most often priced out of care they didn't choose to need. For adults, the Sayra C Method is $107 and covers the same sequence I use in session.

  • Sessions cancelled with less than 24 hours notice are charged a $125 late cancellation fee, and the same applies to no-shows. If something comes up, tell me as early as you can and I'll do what I can to find another time that week.

  • Through Thrizer, which handles payment and can help you track out-of-network reimbursement. You'll get the details at intake.

  • No. Once you buy a package, those sessions are yours whenever you use them. Life gets complicated and I'd rather you use them when they're useful than lose them to a deadline.

02 DECIDING WHETHER TO LEAVE

  • There isn't a test, and anyone selling you one is guessing. What I look for with clients: are you still trying to be understood, or have you stopped bothering. Are you imagining the future together, or imagining it alone and feeling relief. Most people know a long time before they let themselves know. The question is usually not whether you know. It's whether you're ready to act on it.

  • Yes, and it's the most common state people arrive in. Ambivalence isn't confusion or weakness. It's what happens when two true things are in conflict: this isn't working, and this is my whole life. You don't have to resolve it before you get help. Sorting out which parts are grief and which are doubt is a good use of therapy.

  • Only you can answer that, and I'd rather help you answer it than answer it for you. What I'd ask: what specifically would trying harder look like, have you tried it before, and what changed. If the plan is being more patient and asking for less, you've probably already tried that. If it's something concrete that hasn't been attempted, that's different information.

  • Different jobs. A lawyer handles the legal and financial process, and I'm not one and won't advise on it. Therapy is for the decision, the fallout, and who you become after. Plenty of people work with both at once. If you haven't spoken to a lawyer yet and you're seriously considering leaving, that's a conversation worth having early, for information if nothing else.

  • I won't push you either way, and being divorced myself doesn't mean I think everyone should be. What I'll do is help you get clear on what you actually want, separate from what you're afraid of and what everyone around you thinks. Some people who do this work stay married. That's a legitimate outcome and not a failure of the therapy.

03 THE FIRST WEEKS

  • Because your nervous system is registering a threat and there's no action to take at two in the morning. It's one of the most common things people describe in a first session, along with waking at the same hour every night. It usually improves as the situation stabilizes, and it improves faster when you're doing something with the thoughts during the day instead of only at night.

  • Yes, especially early. What matters more is the pattern over weeks: are the days spacing out, or is every day the same. If it's been months with no change, or you're not eating, not sleeping, or not able to work, that's worth talking to someone about. If you're having thoughts of hurting yourself, call or text 988 now rather than waiting for a consult.

  • By planning it instead of hoping it goes well. The dread is usually worse than the day. Decide in advance where you'll be, who you'll be with, and what your exit is. Change one thing about the tradition on purpose so it isn't a smaller version of the old one. And expect the day after to be harder than the day itself, because most people brace for the date and forget about the landing.

  • Compartmentalizing, and it's a skill rather than a symptom. Work has structure, a role, and people who need things from you, which is genuinely stabilizing. Home has none of that right now. It becomes a problem when the split gets so wide that the home version has no outlet at all, which is often the point at which people call me.

  • Longer than you want and less time than you fear. Nobody can give you a number, and the ones who do are guessing. What I've seen: the hard days come in waves that get further apart, and most people notice the gaps before they notice the healing. The people who move faster are usually the ones who stopped waiting to feel ready before they changed anything.

04 MONEY, WORK & STARTING OVER

  • The belief is usually doing more damage than the gap. I'm not a career coach and I won't pretend to be. What therapy helps with is the part where you rehearse why it won't work instead of making the call, which is the actual thing standing between most people and a first interview.

  • That's a financial question before it's a therapeutic one, and it deserves a real answer from a lawyer or a financial professional rather than a guess from me. What I can tell you is that "I can't afford to" is sometimes true and sometimes a story that hasn't been checked in years. Worth finding out which one you're working with before it makes the decision for you.

  • By moving it from a feeling to a number. Vague financial fear is unbearable and unsolvable. A specific figure is stressful and workable. Most people avoid looking because looking makes it real, and then spend every night imagining something worse than the truth. We work on what's yours to solve, what's someone else's, and what's just fear wearing a spreadsheet.

  • You'd have to decide that. What I'd point out is that the decisions you make in this period, about the settlement, the house, the schedule, and what you accept, tend to shape the next decade. Making those from a clear head is not a luxury purchase. If the number genuinely doesn't work, the Sayra C Method is $107 and covers the same sequence.

05 FRIENDS, FAMILY & PEOPLE WHO PICKED SIDES

  • Because a divorce makes people choose, and most would rather avoid the discomfort than pick. Some are keeping distance out of loyalty, some out of awkwardness, and a few because your divorce is frightening to look at while they're in their own marriage. It usually says more about their capacity than about you, which doesn't make it hurt less.

  • Short, consistent, and without the reasons. "We've decided to separate, we're both okay, and I'd rather not go into it" is a complete statement. You are not obligated to explain, defend, or provide the story. Decide the one sentence in advance and use the same one every time, because improvising it forty times is exhausting.

  • Notice what you're actually asking them for, because it's usually agreement and they may not be able to give it. Some families need years. Some never come around. What you can control is how much access they get to the details while they're using them against you. That's a boundary, not an estrangement.

  • Stop supplying material. Most unsolicited advice runs on information, and the people giving it are often being fed by you in your worst moments. Pick one or two people who can actually hold it and give the rest the short version. This is one of the more practical reasons to have somewhere else to put it.

  • Yes. You're also allowed to be angry and still keep the relationship, which is the part people struggle with. Divorce clarifies who shows up, and that clarity is often unwelcome. Whether those relationships change permanently is a decision for later, not for the year you're in now.

06 YOUR EX, THEIR PERSON & THE PHONE

  • You start by admitting what you're looking for, because it's rarely information. It's usually proof: that they're suffering, or thriving, or that you mattered. The behavior is a loop that promises relief and delivers a worse night. Blocking or muting isn't avoidance or immaturity. It's removing a source of injury you keep choosing to visit.

  • Because it makes the ending real in a way that paperwork doesn't, and because it invites a comparison you were already making privately. It often has very little to do with wanting them back. What it usually touches is the fear that you were replaceable and the timeline story you've built about who's winning. That story is worth taking apart, because it's making your recovery about them.

  • Because you're not missing the treatment. You're missing the version of them you fell for, the life you built, and the person you were inside it. Nervous systems attach to consistency, not to quality, which is why leaving something harmful can feel like withdrawal. Missing them isn't evidence you made the wrong call.

  • Yes, and it's normal to love them and be certain you're not going back. Those aren't in conflict, though everyone around you will treat them as though they are. Feelings don't end on the schedule of the legal process. What matters is what you do with them, not whether you have them.

  • Replaying is your mind trying to find the moment where it could have gone differently, so it never runs out of material. It tends to quiet down when the questions underneath get answered somewhere other than at 2 a.m.: what actually happened, what was mine, what wasn't, and what I'm doing with that. This is most of what the first stretch of therapy is.

07 GRIEF, GUILT & THE FEELINGS NOBODY WARNED YOU ABOUT

  • Because a crisis gives you something to do, and then it ends. While it was happening you had tasks, decisions, and a face to keep on. That was competence, not avoidance, and it got you through. When it's over, the adrenaline goes and what you postponed arrives on its own schedule, usually after everyone else has decided you're fine.

  • Choosing something doesn't exempt you from grieving it, though the people around you may have decided it does. That mismatch is often the harder part. Guilt in this position is frequently grief that hasn't been given permission to be grief, because you're not supposed to be sad about something you asked for.

  • I can't promise you that, and I wouldn't trust anyone who does. What I can say is that what tends to matter most is not whether their parents divorced but how much conflict they're exposed to and whether they're being asked to manage adult feelings. Both of those are things you have some control over, and both are workable.

  • Almost never entirely, and almost never not at all. The all-or-nothing version is the one that keeps people stuck, because you either defend yourself forever or you carry the whole thing. Getting specific about what was actually yours is uncomfortable and it's the thing that eventually lets you put the rest down.

  • Probably nothing, and time isn't the right measure. Anger that persists usually has something under it that hasn't been addressed, often a boundary that was crossed and never named, or grief that got skipped because anger was more available. Time works on grief. It does very little for patterns.

08 DATING, YOUR BODY & STARTING AGAIN

  • When you want a partner rather than a rescue. A useful test: can you get through a weekend alone without needing it filled. If being by yourself still feels like something to escape, dating will be about the escaping. There's no required waiting period, and the number of months matters less than what you're bringing.

  • That fear is nearly universal and almost never predictive. What it usually indicates is that your sense of your own worth got tangled up in a relationship that ended, and it's now being negotiated by whoever happens to reply to a message. Getting that back is work you do before dating, not something dating gives you.

  • Because stress changes how you sleep, eat, and move, and because for a long stretch your body was known mostly by one person who isn't there anymore. It's a common thing to describe and rarely a comfortable one. It usually comes back gradually as the rest of life reorganizes, and it's a normal thing to bring to a session.

  • Later than you want to and after it's genuinely stable. The specific timeline matters less than the pattern: kids who meet several new partners in short order learn that adults arrive and disappear. If you're asking because it feels early, it probably is, and that instinct is worth listening to.

  • By finding out what the pattern is actually solving, because it's doing something for you or you wouldn't repeat it. Usually it's familiarity, and familiar registers as chemistry even when it's harmful. That's most of Modules 2 and 4 of the Sayra C Method, and it's the piece I most often see people skip on their way back to dating.

09 WORKING WITH ME

  • Fifteen minutes on video. You tell me what's going on, I ask questions, and we both get a read on whether this is a fit. If it isn't, I'll say so and point you somewhere better. No preparation needed and nothing to fill out beforehand.

  • No. Divorce isn't a disorder and most of the people I work with don't meet criteria for anything. What matters is whether the way you're currently living is sustainable, not whether it has a clinical label.

  • No. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, not a prescriber. If medication seems worth exploring, I'll say so and help you find someone who can evaluate it.

  • Yes, with the standard legal exceptions: imminent risk of harm to you or someone else, suspected abuse of a child or vulnerable adult, or a court order. These are covered in your intake paperwork and I'd rather you ask about them than wonder.

  • No. I'm licensed in Florida, which means you need to be physically located in Florida during sessions. That covers Miami, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Naples, and anywhere else in the state.

still deciding

If your question isn't here, that's what fifteen minutes is for.

No cost, no pressure, nothing to fill out. Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you honestly what I'd work on first and whether I'm the right person for it.

Book a Free Consult

VIRTUAL ACROSS FLORIDA · PRIVATE PAY, OUT OF NETWORK, SUPERBILL AVAILABLE · TEENS 14 AND UP

Not a crisis service. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988, or go to your nearest emergency room.