What Therapy with Me is Like
I utilize an eclectic, client-focused approach in my mental health counseling sessions to meet the clinical needs of my clients.
Therapeutic Modalities that I use in counseling sessions include:
Person-Centered Therapy
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Narrative Therapy
Social Constructionist Therapy
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Interpersonal Therapy
Feminist Therapy
Trauma Informed Therapy
Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
Mindfulness
Somatic Therapy
Existential Therapy
Exposure Response Prevention (ERP)
My Therapy Philosophy:
What is helpful for one client may not be helpful for another, so I tailor my services to each individual.
What clients can expect
What will our therapy sessions look like?
Your First Online Therapy Session
In your first virtual therapy session, we will do a Biopsychosocial Assessment. Basically, that’s a way for me to learn about a lot of different areas of your life that are impacting your reasons for seeking mental health counseling. It includes talking about your past, present, and future; exploring the biological factors like physical illnesses or symptoms, your environment, what you consume, etc.; psychological factors including experienced symptoms, your emotions, beliefs, values, wants/needs, any provided diagnoses, lived experiences, perceptions, etc.; and social factors including your family of origin, current family and relationships, your education, your career, your hobbies, etc.
I know, I know, that’s a lot. Sometimes we don’t get through everything in one session and that is okay and totally normal. We all move at our own pace and the therapy process cannot be rushed- as much as we may want to hurry up and feel better already. The most important aspect in you accomplishing your therapy goals is the relationship that we, the therapist and the client, develop. I have no interest in pushing you too hard, making you uncomfortable, re-traumatizing you, or creating a dependance on you needing me, or any therapist, forever. We will go at a pace that’s comfortable and works for you. I may offer gentle nudges or challenges at times as needed because I’m not an AI therapy bot that will just mindlessly validate you. If there are difficult topics to process, we can do that when you are ready. We’ll get there when we get there.
I can say that the first question I’m going to ask you, because it’s what I ask everyone is, “Where would you like to start?” If you want more structure, I can ask a different question to start. That’s okay.
Your Following Virtual Therapy Sessions
Once we are done with that biopsychosocial assessment and craft your therapy or coaching goals, we will collaborate in a way that works for you to accomplish those goals. That’s really vague, I know, but everyone’s goals, wants, and needs for therapy are different.
If your goals involve changing behaviors, we may need to talk about triggers, what’s worked or hasn’t worked, any observed patterns- things like that. There will be some homework required if this is what you would like to do. Change is uncomfortable, in order to build new habits we need to move almost comically slow, and changes will need to be implemented outside of the therapy sessions in order to change behaviors.
Sometimes the changes we want to make are more abstract. If there’s some harmful beliefs or negative narratives at play, we will explore the origins of such stories, what are these unconscious ‘rules’ that only apply to you, and work on increasing positive narratives- or neutral narratives if positive feels unrealistic. There will be a little bit of homework for this as well, but it might not be quite as literal as other kinds of homework because of the intangible nature of these concerns.
There may not be any changes that you want to make in therapy, but need a safe space to process the past. We can do that in a way that is comfortable for you.
Structurally, I will start our sessions checking in with how things have been since our last therapy session.
This may be about noticed changes in you, your mood, your thought process, actions, behaviors, or your relationship with people/places/things. It may be following up on any specific homework that was assigned.
If the homework didn’t happen, that’s also okay. That’s just one more data point and we can explore why. If there was homework that was completed we can review the findings and experiences.
This would also be the time to share if there’s any plot twists that have happened since the last session that we need to pivot to. You may want to dictate what is talked about in each session. There may be nothing top of mind and we will continue with your therapy goals and I can provide direction if needed.
Often times, people will come to session saying something along the lines of, “I don’t know what I want to talk about today.” Don’t be concerned if that happens to you. It’s actually an exciting opportunity, because this can create space for major epiphanies or ‘ah-ha!’ moments.