Serenity Counseling & Support Services

"I was a client of Dr. Hickson's for a little over a year & I just wanted to say it was such a good experience. He helped me with so many obstacles and gave me such useful tools I used and will use for years to come. I would 100% recommend him & therapy in itself!"

"I am so happy I came across this company seeking mental health services. The enrollment was easy. I love my therapist Virtue. She truly cares about your mental health recovery and truly enjoys watching you grow and heal. I appreciate this company so much. I recommend this company for mental health services."

"I would highly recommend serenity counseling to anyone who struggles with mental health. I personally work with Virtue, and my experience with her has been phenomenal. Virtue goes above and beyond when it comes to giving advice or tips on how to make your overall quality of life better. She dives deep into the roots of your issues, and works it out with you. She works very well with people of all ages. I have struggled to find a therapist who would take my insurance, (Medicaid) and to find a therapist who would stay for longer than just a few months. After finding Virtue, I felt like the hunt for that was over. Virtue is also overall a great, loving, kind person and very enjoyable to be around. You can tell in the way she works that she loves her job. I always end sessions with her with a smile of my face. I highly recommend her and Serenity Counseling in general!"

"I would like to clarify that this review is my personal experience with Vanissa "Virtue" Chan. One of the office's youth therapists. I'd like to start off by saying that I work with another therapist at this office who is a 5/5 therapist. My background is that I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner student and am aware of the healthcare laws and the therapeutic goals for therapy and counseling. In this review, I'd like to mention that the therapy session was for my teen cousin who lives with me due to his mother passing away. He has a lot of anxiety and moderate depression. He voiced that he wanted to speak to a therapist to discuss his troubles. Virtue was recommended by the office. Warning: If you have a child under the age of 18 years old my advise is to avoid Virtue and try someone else. Please read my commentary below. First, she undermines the importance of the family's involvement with the child's therapy. She questions the parental authority (mine) and justifies the child's "bad" behavior and normalizes these habits by saying things like, "that's how teenagers are," but does not offer solutions to correct this behavior. Secondly, she does not use HIPAA compliant video software for video calls. When I asked her why she didn't use the employer provided software "Myio" for video appointments she said her account simply doesn't work, so she prefers to use Google Meet and Zoom. Zoom is not HIPAA compliant, unless there is a paid version for healthcare users, which I doubt she pays for independently. In any case, when I asked her to use the employer's secure software for our video calls she dismissed my legitimate concern. She didn't offer to fix her IT issues or escalate her concerns with her employer. I think that shows poor character and care to a patient and family. To conclude, her teaching modality was simply below standards in mental health care. She was teaching my cousin about abstract things such as geometric shapes, vibrations, and shining a light in the eye to invoke positive changes. Now, I can acknowledge that there are science based treatments for things like light therapy but this is done by a professional, not a child nor encouraged by a counselor. She should not provide recommendations for treatments nor encourage children to perform treatments like light therapy, which is done by a trained professional - such as a professional trained in EMDR for PTSD. She should be speaking to me as her client's caretaker and address these recommendations, but when I asked her what the goal was for my cousin she simply said something like, "I'm here for his mental health." That is vague and not helpful at all. My cousin had to tell me what was going on in his therapy sessions as Virtue would probably not discuss these concepts with another trained professional such as myself. Simply put, this is the worst experience with a therapist. Please take my word on this and avoid Virtue as your child's therapist as she reinforces bad behaviors."

"Setting up with Serenity was super easy. As someone who hates making phone calls, I was happy about the email option to set up everything. Dr. Samuel Hickson is wonderful! Highly recommend. Very patient, kind, great listener, explains things in a way I could understand, and I found it very easy to talk with him without a feeling of judgment. He is knowledgeable in his field and in my opinion, an expert at what he does."