Counseling

You Are Meant to Lead a Whole, Fulfilling Life

True Relief is Available

Life is more than just pressing on while living with troubling thoughts and emotions. There are reasonable explanations for what you are experiencing, which means there are solutions for addressing your concerns.

You are worth being heard and cared for. You can rediscover that you are more than what your thoughts and emotions say about you and your life. We’ll provide a safe, accepting, knowledgeable space for gaining insight and healing. You are not alone.

How Does It Work?

Counseling is a professional relationship designed to help you navigate the challenges and wounds of life.


1

Reach Out

This might be the hardest step. Just fill out the form or send the email. You are in full control and can decide how to move forward.

2

Check It Out

Benefit from an initial conversation with a counselor. Ask your questions and see if the fit feels right to you.

3

Create a Plan

Together, you and your counselor will explore and choose a method for meeting and a plan to bring you new hope.

4

Start Connecting

In-person, in North Africa, or online, your sessions are designed to guide you toward the whole, fulfilling life you desire.

Counseling Types

What will help you find the fulfilling life you desire?

At its heart, counseling is about providing a safe, non-judgmental space with someone who is not only understanding and empathetic, but also able to assess what is going on. You and your counselor can design a plan to move toward a future full of hope.

We can help you “see beyond” your current, murky horizon and gain new hope. We offer a variety of counseling styles for an assortment of needs, and we offer them in-person (in Tunisia, Mauritania, and Morocco), online, over time, and intensively.

All See Beyond therapists are licensed professionals.

ANXIETY OR STRESS

Learn how to calm your nervous system through some tried and true techniques, and uncover and reform the beliefs that are causing you distress.

GRIEF AND LOSS

Identify the multiple layers of losses in painful or disappointing events, and find comfort through connection and healthy grieving.

TRAUMA

Counseling to address the common, longer-term repercussions of traumatic events, including depression, stress, anxiety, and PTSD. We offer EMDR.

INDIVIDUAL

Understanding and integrating your experience into your greater story brings new depths of well-being. Discover the “why” behind your distress and move forward.

INTERPERSONAL

Help for navigating the offenses of difficult or confusing relationships and developing more helpful communication with others. We also offer mediation for couples, co-workers, and others.

MARRIAGE

Increase your hope. Marriage is hard enough before adding the pressures of cross-cultural living. Get help to heal, reconnect, and enjoy marriage again.

COUPLE’S CHECK-UP

A 75-minute session to review Prepare/Enrich Assessment results, celebrate strengths, and plan steps for growth areas. This is often a starting point for pre-marital or couple’s counseling.

CULTURAL ADJUSTMENT

Discover strategies for a more enjoyable cultural adjustment, while having a safe place to share your frustrations. Discover what this transition is triggering from your past, and learn how to move forward.

ONLINE

Using secure, HIPAA Compliant Software, we’ll connect to wherever you are to keep you moving toward your counseling goals.

PARENTS’ CONSULTATION

Even the most experienced or wisest parents can face challenges raising or educating their children. Schedule a 90-minute consultation online with Children's Psychologist, Maureen Neihart, PsyD., if you struggle with your child’s behavior or are concerned with your parenting skills. Consultations can help you make sense of your child’s unique pattern of strengths and weaknesses, as well as offer you new strategies to manage challenging behaviors and address your child’s needs.

How Much Does it Cost?

Non-Profit:

Individual: $65 / 50-minute session.

Couples: $100 / 75-minute session.

EMDR: $100 / 75-minute session.

Standard

Individual: $100 / 50-minute session.

Couples: $150 / 75-minute session.

EMDR: $150 / 75-minute session.

Meet Our Counseling Staff

  • Outside of my passion for helping people live an abundant life, I love mountain biking, NASCAR, and playing tennis anytime I can find a partner! I hold a love for Monster Truck racing deep down inside. My wife is just happy that I didn’t take it up as a profession!

    I got into counseling through a “back door.” I was in charge of crisis management for the school I worked for and took a training on helping people in crisis. It wasn’t what I expected, but I loved learning how to help people on an emotional level, even through traumatic events.

    That’s what started my journey, which includes a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling through Liberty University and a Professional Counselor License from the state of Ohio, as well as Michigan. (Verify my license here). My specialties are in marriage counseling and trauma counseling (including EMDR).

    My goal is to provide a safe, confidential, caring environment for my clients so they can develop emotional, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual resources to bring about change, healing, and restoration. Close to three decades of overseas work have given me a firsthand understanding of both the stress and struggles of cross-cultural life, as well as the potential toll it can take on individuals, couples, and families.

    I’ve experienced a lot of what you are going through, and I’d love to help see you thrive cross-culturally in all areas of life.

    Ohio is my home in the US. I’ve been married for 33 years, and have two boys, a daughter-in-law, and three young grandsons. Since 1997, I’ve been living in Morocco and I travel throughout North Africa.

    Timothy Reid is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board. You may verify his license by clicking here.

  • After a very difficult experience living in North Africa, I spent some time working with an amazing counselor. I started to see beneath the surface of what was going on and learn more about myself and my story. It feels extreme to say it was life-changing. . . but it really was. I began learning about mental health and trauma, at first for myself, but gradually I started seeing opportunities to use what I'd learned to help others in my life. Eventually, this led me to get a master's degree in professional counseling at Ottawa University and to become a licensed counselor in Arizona. I am a Certified Trauma Professional (CTP) and have training in EMDR.

    I am passionate about creating a safe space for people to process the hard aspects of their life and to discover what their needs are as well as how to get them met. It is sometimes hard to have hope that life can be different, so as a therapist I get to hold out hope for you when hope feels far away. My goal in therapy is for you to feel heard, understood, and supported. Whether past negative experiences keep creeping into your daily life, your present circumstances feel overwhelming, or you can't understand why you're struggling since "everything is good," I would be happy to walk alongside you on this journey you're on.

    I currently live in Morocco with my husband. Outside of work, I love to hike, sit in nature, listen to music, cook, chat with friends, and try to keep plants alive (with varied success). 

    Lynne Servini is a Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC) with The State of Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners. You may verify her license by clicking here and using the verification tab.

You may read See Beyond’s general confidentiality policies by clicking here. Additional policies specific to counseling will be presented by your counselor.

Special note on service availability:

See Beyond serves English-speaking expatriates who are living in North Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf, and the Middle East. People living and working in these areas are our priority. We also work with those who work(ed) in those regions but are currently in Ohio, Michigan, or Arizona, where our counselors are licensed. We may take clients outside of these areas when we have availability.

We are happy to serve clients in person when they can come to us, or when we travel in their country. Most of our counseling is offered online.

FAQS Counseling

  • Primarily, we serve English-speaking expatriates living in North Africa, the Sahel, and the Middle East. We work with teens and adults. We also do consultations for parents of younger children.

  • We customize our counseling to your needs. We primarily draw from Person-Centered, Cognitive-Behavioral, and Emotion-Focused approaches. EMDR is also available.

  • We are not able, at this time, to help those struggling with alcohol or drug addiction.

  • We value your privacy, and confidentiality is very important to us. Here is what we mean and don’t mean by confidentiality.

    We will not share your information or the content of your conversations with anyone except in rare circumstances. We will share with appropriate authorities, specialists, and/or organizations, as legally or ethically required, when we hear, from our clients, about situations that involve harm to self or others.

    Counseling clients' content (excluding identifying information) is only shared with other licensed professionals for the purpose of increasing the quality of care. Your name, contact information, and type of service may be shared with a SB administrative assistant in order to invoice you appropriately.

    We will only share information with third parties specifically designated in advance (for example, organizations who are paying for services) items that are agreed to in advance by all parties. Our standard procedure is to share as little with third parties as possible—in most cases, only that the meeting occurred.

    In the rare event that See Beyond is required to write a report for a third party, clients have a chance to review and discuss the written report in advance. This does not mean that clients can change or adapt the report.

    When we meet online, we use HIPAA compliant platforms, and when internet difficulties arise, we only switch to other platforms with your express consent. We use a secure email system, but we can’t guarantee that a data breach couldn’t occur. The same holds true for forms submitted on our website, so please be selective about what you write on those platforms.

    You can read our complete privacy and confidentiality policy here.

  • No. We do not bill insurance. Some clients have found that their insurance companies have reimbursed them for counseling or other See Beyond services; however, this is not common. We do, however, directly bill organizations who may be involved in paying for our services on your behalf.

  • First Sessions: The first few sessions are to help us understand your concerns and the consequences they are having on you. Prior to the first meeting, you’ll need to complete several forms and assessments, which we will then discuss in the initial sessions. We’ll also cover confidentiality, your rights as a client, and other important policies.

    Subsequent Sessions: What happens in subsequent sessions varies, depending on your unique desires and needs. However, common aspects of sessions include: meaningful, co-directed conversations, intentional activities designed to help you discover and address underlying issues, skill development, and determining and reviewing between-session homework assignments.

  • Both counseling and coaching are based on building a trusting relationship, understanding the client’s needs, and using intentional, co-directed conversations capable of helping you reach your goals.

    Counselors are uniquely suited to help clients whose struggles are connected to distressing patterns and thoughts related to past wounding, as well as anxiety, depression, trauma, behavioral addictions, and longer-term or deeply emotional marriage concerns.

    Coaches have a forward focus, helping clients to reach their goals, get unstuck, and move ahead. Coaches use an approach similar to Solution-Focused Brief Therapy used by counselors. Coaches help you think about your goals from fresh perspectives designed to bring about new awareness. This facilitates clients in choosing more meaningful steps toward their goals.

    If your topic is primarily about reaching goals (internal or external) in the future, you may want to start with a free consultation with a coach. If your struggles are deeply emotional, perhaps rooted in the past, or involve distressing thoughts or habits, we suggest you start with a counseling consultation.

  • If you two are generally doing well and would like to further enhance your communication skills, the Navigating Desires and Decisions in Marriage Training may be a good fit. If you have been wounded by one another, and those painful places are getting in the way of moving forward, consider marriage counseling. If you’d like to meet with one of us in order to sort through what would be best for you, please set up a free consultation by clicking here.

  • Because our clients are spread out across a vast geographical area, we do our best to come to you. We visit cities in Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia regularly. We can come to your home or another suitable private location in your area when we are nearby. We often do personalized retreats where you can receive intensive counseling at hotels or privately-rented homes. We offer counseling online to those who live in or have lived in North Africa and the Middle East. For clients now living in the United States, we must follow their state’s licensing laws, which we are willing to investigate.

  • People most commonly come to us for anxiety, anger, depression, interpersonal problems, trauma, grief and loss, adjustment issues, behavioral addictions, marriage struggles, and more.

  • See Beyond counselors currently live or have lived in North Africa or the Middle East, so they “get” what cross-cultural living in these areas of the world is like. They’ll “get” your unique vocabulary, and you won’t have to justify why you want to continue living overseas. Our counselors respect the value of living cross-culturally and want to help you “Do Better, Stay Longer” in your cross-cultural situation, if that is what you desire.

    See Beyond is made up of a multidisciplinary team, so our counselors have access to certified and licensed debriefers, coaches, Third Culture Kid specialists, and others. The additional team members may have unique gifts to bring to your experience when counseling is not needed or doesn’t meet all your needs.

    We seek to customize our services to meet your unique needs.

  • Counseling normally consists of 50-minute sessions for individuals or 75-minute sessions for couples. Brief, intensive therapy typically consists of two or more sessions daily over a period of several days. We'll give you a good faith estimate for how many sessions we think may be needed. Traditional counseling typically takes place once or twice weekly.

    Together, based on your individual needs, we’ll determine a target number of sessions. For scheduling and budget purposes, it is good to plan for ten sessions, although more or less might be needed.

  • We hope that you enter into counseling with a desire to learn about yourself and grow personally, and that you quickly develop a good, trusting rapport with your counselor. Should you ever feel uncomfortable, you are encouraged to share that with us.

    We may suggest activities designed to help you move toward your goals. All activities will be explained, and we’ll seek your agreement before proceeding. You may be invited to discuss uncomfortable topics that need to be addressed to reach your goals. While we may encourage you in that direction, you have control and authority to only go where you are ready to go.

  • Navigating Desires and Decisions in Marriage (NDDM) is training in communication and a decision-making process in order to build greater intimacy and more effective and unified, forward movement. On the other hand, Marriage Counseling is a therapeutic process designed to uncover and repair underlying barriers to trust and intimacy, bring healing to past wounds, and employ new understanding and skills for fulfilling one another's attachment longings. NDDM is done by a couple with a couple and is focused on building skills for the future. Marriage Counseling is done by a therapist with a couple and is focused on restoration. It often includes skill building as well.

Hear About the Results

  • Tim asks permission to walk into raw, vulnerable spaces and always respects my limits. I walk into and out of sessions with Tim feeling safe.

    —Counseling Client

  • Having a counselor, like Lynne, that understands overseas life is so helpful with having the shared experience of living and working overseas.

    —Counseling Client

  • One of our team members had experienced some significant burnout, sickness, and trauma. We thought they would have to return home to receive help, counseling, and rest. I am very happy to say that, due to the service and expertise of See Beyond, our team member has not only been able to stay in country, but recover and find health, strength, and the desire to carry on.

    —Team Leader

  • I was trying to understand sexuality better and correct some of the purity culture ideas that I grew up in. I was concerned about sharing this vulnerable part of my life and wondered if counseling could really help. Counseling with Lynne was so helpful! I was able to dive into my sexual story and it gave me tools to continue processing.

    —Counseling Client

  • I felt encouraged, safe, and fully emotionally supported, enabling me to be honest and vulnerable. I found someone who designed the course of therapy sessions to fit my personality and sway.

    —Counseling Client

  • I’ve seen several counselors, and one thing that stands out about Tim is that he doesn’t make assumptions about how I feel or what I’ve experienced. Instead, I have always felt heard and respected.

    —Counseling Client

  • I had some nervousness about starting something new but, I was excited to start and see what we could find out about what I was experiencing. Counseling with Lynne has been an amazing experience for me. I have also benefited from already having this support system in place when I had some unexpected traumatic experiences in our host country. —Bethany

    —Bethany

  • Counseling with Lynne has helped me so much with the anxiety that I was previously dealing with—it rarely comes up now and I am equipped to handle it when it does. After regular counseling, I am calmer overall, better at regulating my emotions, and more compassionate with myself and others.

    —Counseling Client

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