OVERVIEW

I work with clients (individual and couples/relationship therapy) around many different areas including depression, anxiety, relational problems, adjustment difficulties, life transitions, and others. I specialize in working with sexuality (i.e. sexual function and dysfunction, dating, relationships, sexual orientation, gender non-conformity, transgender issues, consensual non-monogamy, kink, sexual compulsivity, sexual trauma, and more). I also have experience working with severe eating disorders, trauma, and grief/bereavement. I have worked in the field for over 18 years in various settings: an inpatient psychiatric unit, college campuses, community mental health clinics, a therapeutic nursery, a residential treatment facility for the diagnosis and treatment of sexual addiction/compulsivity/trauma, an outpatient psychiatry clinic, and a residential treatment facility for women with eating disorders. 

MY THERAPY PROCESS

Prior to meeting, I will send you paperwork to fill out to get to know a bit more about you and why you are seeking treatment. This allows me to get a sense of what is going on and whether it makes sense for us to meet or if you would be better served by another therapist. This paperwork will also ask you about your therapy preferences as a way to personalize your therapy to what you are looking for. Some clients will have strong preferences about what they are looking for and others will be quite open (which is totally fine, too!)

After getting this information, we will set up an initial appointment. I meet with clients for two to three evaluations sessions to try to get a sense of what brought you to therapy. If after a few sessions clients feel comfortable working with me (and I with them), we come up with a treatment plan and goals we can work on together. Once this has been established, clients are encouraged in subsequent sessions to bring up content related to their therapeutic goals whether it is something that has been on their mind a lot or something related that came up in the prior week. Therapy can be short-term (often seen as around 10-12 sessions) or longer term (6 months and longer), depending on the severity of your distress and your desired goals. For a fuller explanation of my treatment approach, please see my treatment philosophy page.  

As someone makes progress towards their treatment goals, they may start thinking about ending treatment. Clients should feel free to bring this up when they start having these thoughts so that we can make sense of what to do with them. Sometimes it is because the therapy is not helping and our approach needs to be refined. Other times, clients are feeling better and they either want to work on something else or they feel like they don’t need the support of therapy anymore. When ending treatment that has gone well, my tendency is to move away from once a week meetings to meeting every two weeks so we both can get a sense of how a client does on their own. I tend to do this for 2-3 months before formally ending sessions with an offer to clients to return in the future if the problem returns or they want to work on something else.