Where to find free therapy in Chicago

December 21, 2007 5:36 PM

Is there any place in Chicago to go for free, extremely cheap, or sliding-scale-rate therapy/counseling?

It's not an emergency, but is indeed urgent. Someone very close to me is dealing with general depression, anxiety, struggles with debt, as well as grief over the recent loss of a family member, and neither one of us can afford to do anything about it.

He went to a therapist for several visits previously and reported success with feeling better, but had to stop going due to the high prices of appointments.

We recently moved to Chicago and can barely transfer between buses successfully, let alone track down the kind of affordable help that is needed here. Help with a personal recommendation, advice on which directions to begin looking, or any other info about resources we might find valuable will be greatly appreciated.

I've created the email address [e-mail] if anyone prefers responding off the green that way

posted by white light to health & fitness (9 comments total)

A mental health clinic run by the CDPH would be a good place to start. There's a list of them here:
posted by aerotive at 6:05 PM on December 21, 2007

The Illinois Department of Human Services
posted by SuperSquirrel at 6:09 PM on December 21, 2007

I meant to also include this potentially helpful link to the RTA's TripPlanner service.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 6:12 PM on December 21, 2007

This listing of Chicago therapists, sorted by price, starts at $50/hour. That may still be too expensive for you, but many of these therapists, including the first one on the list, have sliding scale fees.
posted by maudlin at 6:18 PM on December 21, 2007

I recommend Northwestern's Family Institute. There are a few locations including downtown Chicago and Evanston. It is totally sliding scale-- as low as 5$. They offer individual therapy, not just family therapy. Their web site is http://family-institute.org/. Good luck!
posted by natness at 8:32 PM on December 21, 2007

The Chicagoist blog just had a post about this earlier this week:

http://chicagoist.com/2007/12/19/i_cant_afford_t.php
posted by HeroZero at 5:59 AM on December 22, 2007

The Holbrook Center at 641 W. Lake Street, offers exactly what you're looking for. Went there for many years myself, and owe a great deal of my sanity to the good people there. Don't let the Catholic Charities part scare you off, either. Everything was completely non-denominational.
posted by Work to Live at 1:15 PM on December 22, 2007

The CG Jung Institute of Chicago offers sliding scale therapy.
posted by me3dia at 1:22 PM on December 27, 2007

Thank you all so much.
posted by white light at 9:02 PM on January 28, 2008