About Therapy & My Practice
do you offer telehealth? Can we meet at your office?
Yes, I offer telehealth. We can meet via secure video chat or by phone. At this time, I am not meeting clients in the office due to Covid-19 safety concerns. I am tracking our local status with regard to the state’s staged reopening plan to assess when it will be appropriate to resume in-person services.
What will therapy be like?
We will meet once a week for 50-minute sessions.
During the first 1-3 sessions, we will discuss what’s bringing you to therapy and your goals for our work together. We will also explore relevant areas of your life, including past and present relationships, your family history, your work, and significant events in your life. This exploration will give us a solid foundation for actively working with your concerns.
Where we go from there will depend on your specific needs. If you are finding it difficult to navigate the day-to-day, we may focus on short-term goals to increase your sense of stability. For longer term goals, we may examine patterns in your life that you’d like to change or define a path forward into areas of personal development that are important to you.
At times, I may invite you to increase your awareness of the full range of thoughts and emotions you are experiencing – including some that you would rather avoid. I may also check in with you about your responses to your interaction with me and your experience of seeing and hearing my responses. What emerges between us in sessions can turn unspoken beliefs and patterns into an immediate and tangible experience that we utilize to accelerate the pace of change.
How long will it be before I start to feel better?
Many people begin to feel an increase in hope and optimism within a few sessions. The experience of sharing your struggles out loud with a committed partner can lead to positive shifts in how you experience these challenges.
At the same time, the process inevitably leads us to broaching difficult emotions, the ones you’ve been working so hard to avoid. The pace of progress tends to align with your willingness to grapple with these feelings as they arise. Your commitment to practicing new ways of being and thinking (sometimes using “homework” I assign to you) in between sessions is also key to the pace of change. The success of therapy is ultimately grounded in how you decide to use it. My role is to be a patient and compassionate ally who thoughtfully transforms your risk-taking into meaningful growth.
Within about six months of regular sessions, you are likely to notice some changes showing up in how you behave or how you think about your problems.
Can I see you every other week or once a month?
When I start working with clients, I commit to doing the best I can for them, which means that we both need to commit to weekly sessions. In my work with clients, I have found that trust-building and progress is significantly slower and more difficult when we meet less than once per week. The consistency creates traction necessary for the work to “stick” and the momentum to push through strategies you might have developed to avoid painful feelings.
As we come to feel that you have largely achieved your goals for therapy and begin to think about ending, it may be appropriate to reduce the frequency of sessions to make the process of terminating therapy less abrupt.
Are our sessions confidential?
Yes. Confidentiality is essential to creating the safety that makes therapy effective and is protected by law. Nothing we discuss will be shared with anyone.
There may be cases where you might benefit from my discussing your situation with an outside resource (e.g. your physician or psychiatrist), but I am not permitted to release any information without your permission.
That said, there are three instances where I am required by state law and professional ethics to break our confidentiality. These are:
If I suspect that a child has been abused, neglected, or is at risk for this.
If I suspect that an older adult (60+) has been abused, neglected, or is at risk for this.
If I suspect that you are at imminent risk of physically harming either yourself or causing harm to another person.
Do you work with couples?
No, I currently offer only individual psychotherapy. If a need for a couples therapist arises in our work, I will be happy to provide referrals to other local clinicians who specialize in couples work.