NextStep Psychology: You’re Under the Care of a Compassionate and Competent Team

February/March 2023

Walking alongside you as you take the next step in your mental health journey are the clinically trained providers at NextStep Psychology in Zionsville. These familiar faces have formed the NextStep Psychology practice after the group’s previous place of employment closed last December.

Realizing that they — collectively as a group of providers and professionals — were making an impact in the Zionsville and surrounding communities, Brett Presley, MD, Rosalind Schmutte, PsyD, HSPP, Aimee Dershowitz, PsyD, HSPP, Abigail Leal, MA, LMHC, Katie Meyer, MS, LMHC, and Tony Jennings, Practice Manager, decided to bring all of their expertise and experience together and open the NextStep Psychology private practice.

Dr. Schmutte shared, “We knew that we had something special with this group of people. I’ve never worked with a group of people so competent and so wonderfully cooperative as what we’ve put together here. And when the other practice closed, we decided that we wanted to stay together, so we put our heads together, we did some exploring, and we were able to open our practice on January 23rd of this year.”

Areas of Service and Expertise

NextStep Psychology’s mission is to support you on the journey towards change and growth. As a practice, NextStep provides comprehensive psychotherapy services, psychological evaluations, and psychiatric medication management. NextStep providers are clinically trained to provide psychological services to diverse populations throughout the lifespan.

Services that NextStep Psychology provides include:

• ​Individual, Group, and Family Psychotherapy
• Telehealth Services
• Medication Management
• Psychological Assessments
• Psychiatric Evaluation

The NextStep Psychology team is comprised of clinically trained providers who specialize in all areas and aspects of therapy, medicine management, psychological evaluations, counseling for ADHD, Autism, Personality, LGBTQ+, HIV/AIDS, Chronic and Serious Mental Illness, Depression, Anxiety, Substance Abuse, Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychotherapy, among many other behavioral and psychological needs related to disease and health issues.

Dr. Presley explained, “One thing that NextStep Psychology offers is the one-stop-shopping [aspect] that is hard to find in a lot of other practices. We have providers with lots of different backgrounds that specialize in basically every area of concern that people may have and need treatment for. Plus, we have me as a prescriber, which is a fairly rare situation. We also have the psychological testing, and to find all three of these services in one place is pretty unique.”

Dr. Dershowitz added, “We are able to match the client with the therapist that best meets their needs. All of our treatment is tailored specifically to our clients, and we meet individually with everyone to determine what their needs are and how we can meet those needs. We also provide telehealth services as well as in-person services, which offers a lot of flexibility.”

Availability and Flexibility

For clients who may need to switch appointments from in person to a telehealth appointment, the convenience alone can reduce the number of cancelled appointments, delays in treatment, or the need to find a new provider in instances in which a client might have left for college out of the area.

Dr. Presley added, “By switching to telehealth while the college folks are away at school, we can continue the care without interruption, and then they can come back for in-person appointments when they’re on break or back for the summer and that provides a nice continuity of care.”

For those who are thinking about establishing treatment at NextStep Psychology but who are concerned about long wait times, don’t let that be the reason you wait before making the call! NextStep is able to see you sooner than later!

“We have openings as soon as next week or the week after that,” Tony Jennings expressed. “I hear from people calling in to schedule that they’re just thankful that we can get them in here. I’ve heard [the wait] is up to 6 months at some places.”

Setting the Standard for Confidentiality and Connectivity

NextStep Psychology is the gold standard of confidentiality and connectivity with its clients. The NextStep providers are established in the community and greater Indianapolis area, and as a result, they can provide referrals to stress centers and inpatient services providers for patients who are in need of those services. And once the client is able to return to outpatient services, NextStep can schedule their appointments within a week or two [at most] — which is a level of service above the current industry standard. NextStep clients are also assured the highest level of confidentiality, so nobody should ever be concerned about their neighbors, coworkers, etc., learning about their treatment.

“We have very high standards of confidentiality,” Dr. Dershowitz emphasized. “For people who are concerned about others knowing: they’re never going to find out about [your treatment] from us. So, yes, while we want to help reduce the ‘stigma’ [of mental health], we also think it’s important that people who are fearful of stigma know that we are a practice that is not going to be spreading their information around. You can seek help without anyone knowing. We also want to reassure parents that we are safe place for them and their children to seek treatment. It’s important that we help parents to feel more comfortable about their children’s treatment as well.”

Meyer added, “We also hear from clients that they’ve waited to get treatment because they’re ‘not as bad as somebody else’ or didn’t think they needed [therapy] because people go through so much worse. NextStep does a really good job of meeting our clients wherever they are in life and with processing whatever stressors there are. Whether it’s something temporary, has been building up, or something that happened a long time ago, we want people to know that it’s OK to seek help for whatever you’re going through in life, and comparisons aren’t necessarily needed in this space.”

Destigmatizing Mental Health

More and more conversations and studies by medical professionals and mental health providers are connecting physical health to mental health. The providers at NextStep Psychology continue to work with the community to help destigmatize mental health and to advocate for mental wellness as a medical practitioner would advocate for physical wellness.

Dr. Presley said, “What I’ve noticed over the course of my career, and especially since coming up to the Zionsville community in a private practice setting, is that one of the best ways to get the community in general to destigmatize and seek help is by providing really good quality services to the people you’re currently serving. A lot of our referrals come from existing and former clients. The quality of their life improves, and they’re likely to share their story with others. When it becomes more personalized, people are more likely to take that to heart.”

The first step to starting your mental health journey is to call NextStep Psychology or go online to request an appointment.

Dr. Presley concluded, “Our group covers most everything, all age groups, and the fact that we’re all under one roof collaborating with one another, we can staff a case and figure out what the multidisciplinary treatment plan needs to be for that person and make adjustments on the fly as things happen in real time. I think that’s definitely a huge benefit for better treatment outcomes.”

Don’t wait any longer for your life to be better and healthier. Contact NextStep Psychology and start the journey today!

For more information about NextStep Psychology and its providers or to schedule an appointment, visit nextsteppsychologyllc.com, email us at [email protected] or call us at (317) 973-8888.