FAQ

If you have questions, please call or email me to set up a free 20-minute consultation. Or, if you are ready to get started, we can go ahead and schedule an appointment. We will find a time that works best for you and put you on the calendar.

We can set something up via email or over the phone. Once you schedule an appointment, you will receive an email with a link to set up your account. This allows you to complete and sign the paperwork online and put a credit card on file.

My policy is a $50 fee if you cancel within 24 hours of your appointment. However, I understand that life happens. You can’t control when you get sick or when there is a snowstorm. We can also switch to a virtual session if you cancel due to illness and feel up to it or if there is inclement weather and you prefer to stay home.

I offer potential clients a free 20-minute phone consultation during which I will ask you some questions to learn what you are going through and see if I’d be a good fit for your therapy needs.

Counselors help people emerge from pain and actualize their potential to live the lives they want.

Couples counseling is NOT a quick fix, it’s NOT guaranteed to work, and it is NOT magic.

Therapists don’t have a magic wand. The magic happens when clients go home and put into practice the new skills that they have learned.

I have a very human approach to therapy. While the various theories, modalities, and tools are helpful, I believe it is the relationship that does the healing. I want my clients to know that I see them, hear them, and seek to know them, even if no one else in their lives do. I step into their story and join them there.

I am very informal and work hard to make clients feel welcome and put people at ease. We laugh together, cry together, and share the human experience. I try to normalize what my clients are going through to help them feel less alone.

The main goal of therapy is life transformation.

The benefit is that you will learn how to live the life you want. Some of the risks of therapy are emotional discomfort, anger, sadness, fear, anxiety, etc. You may feel challenged to think about your situation differently, which may or may not cause you stress.

A goal of counseling is to be a better you, and it may be painful to get there.

Five foundational things support mental health. 1) Sleep: are you getting enough sleep consistently? 2) Nutrition: are you eating nutritious food? Feeding the body feeds the mind. 3) Exercise: do you get regular exercise, and are you active throughout the day? 4) Community: do you have a strong social support system? 5) Spiritual practice: do you spend regular time refreshing yourself spiritually? These are good things to work on before you start therapy.

Yes, couples fight in therapy. If things get too heated, I call a timeout and gently remind my clients that I don’t need to be present for an argument about a specific incident they remember differently. I’m not a judge.

According to author Terrance Real (Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship), “There is no place for objective reality in personal relationships. Circular arguments go on forever, like a dog chasing its own tail. In intimate relationships, it’s never a matter of two people landing on the one true reality, but rather of negotiating different subjective realities – (you may be) factually correct, but relationally incorrect.”

If you are seeking a therapist who will “diagnose” you and create a step-by-step treatment plan, I may not be the therapist for you. I take a very human, compassionate approach to therapy. Wherever we need to go for each session, that is where we will go.

I have great compassion and care for my clients, which is not a given for all therapists. I am flexible. If something is not working or comfortable for you, we will pivot and use other tools and methods. There are many ways to get to wholeness and healing.

I enjoy stepping into people’s stories and taking some of the burden off their backs. When my clients leave my office at the end of a session, they are a little lighter and often feel empowered to try something new. I know what I am doing is important. Marriages and families are the cornerstones of society. It is very satisfying to build up families and marriages and help them change their family legacies for many generations.

The best Netflix series of all time is Stranger Things. In addition to being ridiculously entertaining, the mom is the hero (love that!), the power of community is central, parents listen to kids, kids listen to parents, and the weirdos and outcasts are the ones who save the world!

Friends speak the truth to each other, forgive, and are honest with each other – friends don’t lie.

The best part of this series is that it takes place in the ‘80s, before cell phones, texting, and social media, when kids went outside, rode bikes together, and played games.

I could write a book on the brilliance of Stranger Things. Stay tuned; maybe I will!