FAQs
Do you offer office visits?
At this time, I am only seeing clients via telehealth in the comfort of your home or safe location of your choosing.
Do you take insurance?
Yes. Please navigate to the “Fee Structure” page to see if your insurance is accepted. If it is not, treatment and coaching are still available based on what you can afford.
Are you licensed in my state?
I am in the process of becoming licensed through Psypact in 38 states in the US to practice psychotherapy. Check HERE to see if your state is included.
If you are seeking wellbeing coaching, I am available throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
What is the first session like?
When we meet for the first time, it will be a free consultation. I will have some routine intake questions, but this will be an opportunity for you to ask as many questions as you like. It is very important to interview therapists to see if they are a good fit for you. Research shows that the best fit has the best outcomes. I am open and flexible and you’ll find me to be someone who is very interested in your questions. I’ll be curious as to what you’ve already tried and what you know doesn’t work, so I can best approach your concerns.
During our first session after that, we’ll go through some history in an unstructured way. First appointments with a therapist can often feel like you’re spending the whole time getting their questions answered. It’s important to me that you leave that session feeling like I really understood you and saw you, and that you have something tangible to take with you, some direction.
Do you do therapy by text?
No. Although I can be available by phone in urgent situations, I don’t text therapy because there are too many opportunities for miscommunication, interpretation and other mishaps. I am also only available to clients during the work day, when I may be in session with others and I strive to keep my own work-life balance outside of those times.
Can I bring my partner to my individual session?
Yes. I’m happy to have visitors in our session. However, it’s best to plan a session like that so we both know what your intentions are for inviting them to session, what role you want me to play, what outcomes you’re hoping for and why they are meaningful. The charge is for an individual session, and our job is to have our work show up in the session so that you’re practicing being the new you with someone who might only understand who you have been in the past.
Do you see children and adolescents?
No. Although I will, at times, see college students who are under 18, I focus only on adults from 18 to ancient sages. You are welcome to have children visit the session when needed, if parenting is a concern we are working on. Please let me know if you are looking for a therapist for your child and I will be happy to help you find a good fit. When you’re home and have kids, it can be difficult to “get away” for a session. Keeping in mind that children are impressionable, we can always find ways to do the work while you wear multiple hats.
FAQs
What’s the difference between Psychotherapy and Coaching? Which one fits me?
The hallmark of mental health difficulty is rigidity. As human beings we are and need to be adaptable. Mental illness and diagnosis are appropriate terms when we find ourselves stuck in a limited range of experience, unable to experience the rest of the range. So depression feels like we’re doomed to experience sadness and/or loneliness, for example, on repeat no-matter what we try. Our energy is limited and life feels difficult to respond to. Anxiety includes a persisting feeling of nervousness, seemingly rendering us incapable of relaxing and allowing events to unfold without our supervision or fear. Substance abuse occurs when we feel unable to navigate the world without a substance, which may have begun as a part of a solution we were exploring, but now the world has shrunk to revolve around that solution, often occurring even though it no-longer works as the solution. When we experience this kind of rigidity and we’ve tried to liberate ourselves to no avail, psychotherapy can and does help return our range of operation. Diagnosis is rarely an identity that we need to adopt, even though it feels like a persisting experience we are unable to extricate ourselves from.
Once we see the opening, even the possibility that we can experience something outside of this limited range, like releasing a tight hamstring, we can gently begin to restore a full range of motion. Diagnosis no-longer fits! But it was real and changed our lives significantly. Through our exploration of the limits of our stuckness we come to understand something deeper about how we work. We can then use this knowledge and awareness to see all of the associated tendon tightness, using neuroplasticity, successive approximation, and consistent attention to move ourselves through a full range of motion where so much more becomes possible in our lives. Wellbeing coaching focuses on global shifts, sometimes small and sometimes quantum leaps into the life of our dreams.
It’s important to understand that through our period of stuckness, sometimes years or decades, we have built physiological brain and body structures that operate in that stuck range. They can be extensive. In times of stress, in transitions, and when we have new trauma or grief, our automated response can be a return to this range of function. At that time, it can be appropriate to return to a therapy relationship or solidify what you have learned by practicing liberation. Don’t worry, you have made progress, and you are not starting over. All of your wisdom remains and is more relevant than ever.
