Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ about the policies of my practice:
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I list my fees here. I raise my fees annually, in February.
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I accept cash, check, or Zelle. I do not accept credit cards.
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I do not bill insurance. What I can do is provide you with receipts for you to submit to your insurance. You can contact your insurance to find out what kind of coverage you have for an out of network therapist. I send receipts at the beginning of the month, for the previous month. If your ability to be in therapy is contingent on getting coverage, I recommend you contact your insurance provider before reaching out to me, to ensure that the sessions will be covered.
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Sessions are 50 minutes long and scheduled at the same time each week. To maximize the usefulness of the therapy and respect the serious commitment from both you and myself, it is important that we meet weekly and on time. I will notify you in advance if I have a planned absence, I will notify you as soon as possible if I have an emergency or unplanned absence. I require that you inform me of all cancellations a minimum of one week in advance and that you do not miss or cancel more than four appointments a calendar year. If less than a week of notice or more than four cancelations in a calendar year, I ask that we make our best attempt to reschedule the appointment within the week of, or in the week before or after your missed appointment. If you travel more than four weeks of the year and you would like to work together, let’s discuss different solutions to that.
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I offer a hybrid of in-person and virtual therapy. I do not work with people who can only attend therapy virtually. Working with me means that we will both make the effort to largely meet in-person, however we will move to video anytime one of us feels we might be getting sick, is recovering from being sick, has been exposed to covid, or simply cannot be in-person for logistical reasons. I sometimes need to travel for other aspects of my career and work remote for a handful of weeks throughout the year.
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I require that we switch to a virtual appointment at signs of sickness. Even if you are not sure why you feel off, I ask that we switch to video in an effort to be abundantly cautious. I work with people who are immunocompromised and part of making that possible requires that you do not come to my office when you are showing signs of infection from an airborne illness. If you would like to be masked in therapy, I am happy to do that ongoing or for occasional purposes (such as an upcoming visit with an elderly person). I have an air purifier in my office, the distance between the seating in my office is about 6 feet, and when weather permits, I air my office with open windows in between sessions throughout the day.
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No, I do not offer sessions in the evenings.
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I only offer weekly therapy. If you are needing more support or would like to work at a deeper level, and I have the time in my schedule, we can meet twice per week.
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While I strive to be responsive and prompt to all email and phone calls, I am not available 24/7. I generally do not answer calls or emails on the weekends, unless it is a serious emergency. If you think you will need frequent care outside of our sessions, I invite you to consider seeing me twice per week and/or consider a larger care system that can get you the support you need. Many of the people I work with attend 12 step, support groups, meditation groups, and work to identify loved ones that can be frequent supports.
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That depends on the degree of social or professional overlap. Please disclose any potential overlap you are aware of in our initial consultation so we can discuss it further.
FAQ about therapy with me:
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After you contact me we will set up a time to talk by phone. This is a brief phone call for us to learn more about each other. The call will be about 20 minutes and I have several questions for you. The focus of this call is for me to assess if you fall within the scope of who I work with and to answer any questions you have about my practice.
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My style is direct, playful, and heartfelt. I am a good fit for people who are ready to do very deep work and take an honest look at what is happening in their lives, with a dedication to work on meaningful change. While I have worked extensively with people who have never been to therapy, I tend to be sought out by people who have already done some therapy and are not at all ambivalent about doing personal work. The people I work with are often seeking an environment that can support a more rigorous process. Some people find my style too direct, while others find it refreshing, insightful, and motivating. If you are concerned that I will only sit and nod my head, that is not my style. I am very engaged.
I practice somatic, psychodynamic, and relational psychotherapy. That means that I may support you to spend time in our sessions noticing the sensations in your body. It also means that I may invite you to think about how your past influences your behaviors or consider when you may have unconscious behaviors. I sometimes use our relationship and ways that we interact to illuminate feelings you may have about intimacy in general or about other people in your life.
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This is a great question! Making therapy effective definitely requires that you do work outside of our sessions. While there aren’t any instant results when it comes to transformation, if you are willing to commit the time, there are things that can speed up the pace of your healing. Here are some ideas:
The number one thing I recommend is a mindfulness or meditation practice. This could be as simple as sitting and breathing. Often people say they don’t have time to meditate. You can meditate for one minute. It would be more beneficial if you did it for longer, but if that is what you can commit to today, then one minute is more useful than zero minutes.
Journaling is a great addition to therapy. Journaling is an exercise in self-expression, self-reflection, self-witnessing, self-containment, and self-validation. It deepens your relationship with yourself, which is the foundation for your relationships with others.
Talking with friends is a great way to practice being vulnerable and develop intimacy. As humans, we need relationships to survive and research indicates that isolation and chronic loneliness are extremely detrimental to your mental and physical health. For many people, talking about deeper issues and sharing feelings is less common in friendships. If that describes you, consider if there is anyone in your life you could try opening up to more. If you develop strong, trusting relationships now, you will have people to call on when you are going through a hard time.
Get enough sleep, eat enough food, and follow a routine. In the world we live in today people think of self care as taking baths, going on vacations, planning a big hike, receiving massage, etc. These are all great, but the most basic self care practices need to be in place for anything else to be sustainable. Before you jump to a complex, expensive self care routine, try making sure you cover the basics by eating enough and sleeping enough, on a regular basis.
12 step. People who have never been to a 12 step meeting, or who have only been to one meeting, often shut down this idea immediately. If you have never been to a meeting, but you can relate to the meeting focus, consider attending more than one meeting before forming an opinion, as there are a lot of different kinds of meetings (including ones for atheists, LGBTQ+, etc). If you don’t like the vibe, try another week at the same meeting, or another meeting altogether. At its core, 12 step is people coming together to bond and share resources around certain issues. It can be a very healing environment if you find the right meeting for you. For some people they never fully love 12 step, but it is the one thing that keeps them accountable to their goals, and that is an incredible thing in itself.
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Finding the right fit with a therapist is important, as it is one of the main predictors for how successful the therapy is. It is also a very personal process, that tends to include several factors. For this reason I like to take the first four sessions to feel that out and talk openly about how it is going before fully committing to working together. I will not be offended if I am not a good fit for you and I support you to be transparent about that. I will also be upfront if I don’t think my style will be a good fit for you and I am happy to get you some strong referrals of people who may be a better fit.
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I offer ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) to people who meet the requirements for a prescription after being assessed by a psychiatrist. I only offer this service in the context of an ongoing therapy relationship and we only start the KAP after we have had ample time to get to know each other and build a foundation of trust. Please note: the psychiatrist charges a separate fee for their services and they will determine if you are a candidate for a prescription.
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How quickly people achieve their goals in therapy depends on many factors, including: what those goals are, how many goals there are, what your personal psychology is like, and how engaged you are in your healing. People tend to make faster progress when they are open to feedback and are able to make growth a priority in their life for a certain period. I do long term psychotherapy work and what that means is that people tend to come to me when they are interested in transforming deeply rooted patterns and/or significant trauma, which happens over years and not months. With all that said, psychotherapy is voluntary, so you can end at any time.
FAQ for couples/relationships:
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Many people wait too long to start couples therapy. If you are having conflicts or avoiding issues that you are not able to repair, that is a great time to seek out couples therapy. When people come to therapy to learn how to make it through a conflict that has not become very challenging or harmful yet, we can get right into working on the conflict. When people have built up months or years of resentments, hurts, retaliations, etc the situation becomes very delicate and generally takes a lot longer to sort out. If you are reading about couples therapy online, it might be a good time to go. Getting good support early on can help a relationship thrive. And if you have already built up resentments and general hurt in the relationship, now is a great time to start therapy.
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I only work with either the couple or the individual, the exception to this is that sometimes I might do a few individual sessions with you in order to make some movement on a particularly stuck issue and then we will reconvene to bring that work into the relationship therapy. I encourage you to read over my website and consider if you think I may be a better fit for your relationship or for one of you individually. I am happy to provide you with referrals to other therapists, should you need them.
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If you are in a place of needing a lot of growth in your self and your relationship, you may be looking for both individual and couples therapy at the same time. If you can afford it and have the time, I recommend doing both. If you each have significant unprocessed trauma, individual therapy is going to be important at some point down the line. That doesn't mean it needs to be the first thing on the list, but even if you go to couples therapy, you may still have struggles in the relationship that need to be worked on separate from the relationship. Either way, couples therapy is beneficial to your relationship and to you as individuals.
And finally, an infrequently asked, but very important question:
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While almost no one asks this question, it is an important one. Sometimes people are too afraid to openly share about what brought them to therapy. However, if something you are struggling with is out of my scope of competence, I am ethically required to refer you to someone who is more specialized. I want you to know what I do not specialize in, so that you can consider that before reaching out to me.
These are not my specialties:
moderate to severe disordered eating
moderate to severe depression
moderate to severe substance misuse/abuse
moderate to severe suicidal ideation
bipolar disorder
obsessive compulsive disorder
couples therapy for abusive relationships
couples therapy for extremely high conflict relationships
couples therapy where one partner is lying about cheating/the cheating has not been disclosed at the start of the therapy
If you are struggling with anything listed above and you are not sure if your situation is mild to moderate, let’s talk about it during our intake call and discuss what may be possible. For example, if you struggle with OCD, but have done extensive work on it and are okay with doing adjunctive therapy with a more specialized clinician, it may work for us to see each other. Or if you are in recovery for disorderd eating, and are open to getting additional support outside of our therapy if needed, it is possible we could still be a good fit.