FAQ

I conduct all sessions virtually. I miss sitting with people in person and hope to return to that reality one day. In the meantime, my clients and I enjoy deciding which cozy and private corners of our homes will be the right place for each week’s session, depending on how we feel.

Please feel free to show up in pajamas, bring beverages and snacks, your pet, blankets, pillows, or whatever else will help you feel your best while we talk.

We use the 20-minute free consultation to achieve a few things. You can ask me any questions about logistics, therapy with me, or me as a person. My questions will focus on what made you decide to seek out therapy at this point so that I can be sure to responsibly let you know whether I have the experience, knowledge, and tools to support you the way you deserve.

In the same way that I’ll want to know what made you feel like we had the potential to be a good fit for each other, I will also be making sure that I’m not potentially saying yes to being your therapist simply because I like you, even if I don’t have the expertise to help you adequately.

I try to make it as simple as possible:

If you provide me with your email address, I will send you access to your online portal. Then, you log into the portal, input basic demographic and payment info, and choose your preference for where and how often you receive messages with reminders and the link for our sessions.

You read through and electronically sign a few documents about HIPAA, confidentiality, my practice policies, etc. Then, you read through a questionnaire with standard introductory questions and decide whether you want to write your answers out or whether you prefer to talk through all that information once we start meeting. That’s all!

During sessions, I meet with clients for a full hour (60 minutes). I know this is not typical, but I’ve seen the difference that those extra 10 minutes can make, and I believe in the power of spending that time together to maximize the positive impact that therapy can have on your life.

If you prefer or only have availability for 45 or 50 minutes, we will also make the most of that time.

Flexible. I typically work Monday through Friday, and on a case-by-case basis, I can sometimes hold weekend sessions. We will do our best to agree on a regular day and time to meet, but I am also well acquainted with the fact that life can get in the way, or your schedule can vary.

So long as there is a commitment to meeting and working together, I do my best to accommodate your schedule. I always appreciate it when my clients can be flexible and understanding when my life unexpectedly messes with our plans.

When we start working together, I will give you my phone number. You can always contact me there via text messages or phone calls. I also respond to emails but am admittedly much slower at doing so. Life happens outside of sessions, so I believe in being available to you in the days between our sessions for check-ins, updates, and support. We will talk through the logistics and limitations once we start working together.

I do not have a set agenda for the first session – no formal intake or predetermined questions. My primary goal for our first meeting is to get to know one another and establish trust and common ground. I trust you to tell me how you’d feel most comfortable making that happen.

Some people prefer that I guide the conversation with questions. Others like to tell me about something they’ve had on their mind or use the time to interview me first before they talk. Still, others realize they’ve been holding things in for so long that they need to start talking and see where it takes them.

Clients’ openness varies. Some are ready and willing to be generous with their trust and tell me about complicated things right from the start, whereas others take more time to earn that trust and talk to me in the beginning about less personal things.

However you feel, I am here for all of it, have no preference or judgment, and appreciate you showing up and trying something new with a stranger.

I am open to meeting with people once every two weeks under certain circumstances. Initially, we should meet weekly to build momentum, get to know one another and understand our work’s goals.

If it’s deemed appropriate after some time, we can shift to meeting less frequently. I have several clients with whom I meet every couple of weeks, and it’s worth noting that this change has typically happened after years of working together when there isn’t as much to cover each week.

For the people who have shifted to less frequent sessions sooner, I find less progress is made as quickly. This is usually because there is so much happening between sessions to catch up on, taking time away from going deeper in our conversations. With that extra time between sessions, there is less ability to continue the momentum weekly so that goals are met and desired results seen.

Ultimately, I defer to you and know that if we’re committed to working together, we will get far and achieve all you look forward to, no matter what. And ultimately, no decision is final! We can continually reassess based on how things are going.

Yes. I’ve been based out of New York City for the entirety of my career, and the people I work with represent the city’s diversity and surroundings. I have also been able to travel to different parts of the country and world to work with people and organizations. I work with clients who are women/femmes/non-binary, who are immigrants and refugees, who are people of color, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community who adhere to a variety of religions and spiritual practices, including no religion at all.

I take pride in the great diversity of the people I work with, especially as doing so mirrors my family background and those in my personal circles. I am acutely aware of my position(s) relative to others and the power I hold just by being a therapist.

All my work as a trauma therapist must consider the many ways that being a member of any of these non-dominant communities impacts the way our trauma plays itself out. I will always be open to talking more about any questions you have related to any of this.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a collection of words that seemingly got together without meaning or sense. It is a type of therapy that is particularly useful for people who have experienced trauma because it works to process/reprocess traumatic memories. This allows your brain to rewire how the memories are stored, forcing it to learn that the trauma is in the past and is not still happening in the present.

By achieving this, it allows your brain to stop giving you flashbacks where you feel like you’re reliving traumatic events. It helps your body stop doing things that make you feel totally out of control, make you sick, or simulate what your body was doing when the bad stuff happened.

When I first learned about EMDR, I was skeptical because it sounded like magic. I was sold once I got trained in it and used it myself. Unfortunately, it’s not magic and doesn’t erase or remove all the challenges, but it is a potent tool (and there are others, too!) that can help us move forward and live in peace.

The simple answer is yes. With very few exceptions (that revolve around your safety), I will not talk to your adults or other people about our sessions without your permission. If you have safe family members or other people in your life whose support could help you achieve your goals, then we’ll talk about ways that we might be able to include them. But even then, I will only speak to them about things you and I have already agreed upon, and I won’t talk to them without your permission.

If you are in an unsafe situation, we will talk to see if there are ways to change that or to see if there are other adults who can help. Regardless of your circumstances, I will always respect your decision about what we share – if anything – with others.

There is one exception. If concerns for your safety rise to the level where I am obligated to speak with someone about you, I will always tell you beforehand, be completely open about what will be shared, and make every effort to include you in the conversation so your voice is heard.

I do not take notes while we are in session. I am required to keep notes as part of every client’s file. While session notes are confidential, there are a few ways that those notes can be accessed if requested and required. As such, it’s important to me that my notes include as little detail as possible so that even if someone were to read all of them, they would not know the details of what was said in our sessions. I take that very seriously.

I don’t want the content of our sessions to be accessible to others, and I never want them to be used against you. So, I do everything I can to ensure that that cannot happen. Of course, my notes are part of your file, so you have the right to do so if you ever want to look at them for yourself or for another reason that will help enhance your life.

If you want! Mascara works if it makes you feel good, and wearing no mascara is good if that’s how you think best. If you know you’re prone to having water fall out of your eyes quickly, it might be helpful to take that into account when you’re preparing for our sessions.

My goal is not to make you cry, but it might happen sometimes. I am very used to sitting with people who are crying (“people who are crying” also includes my children and me) in professional and personal settings and can promise you that I will never judge you for crying, for running mascara, or even for what you use to dry your tears. I am used to people using sleeves, hands, stuffed animals, paper towels, tissues, and other things to do the job. So, I promise we’ll be okay.

Yes! I do not believe in being the therapist who is a blank slate and provides you with no personal information or engagement. Not only does it perpetuate the already existing power dynamic where I have access to your intimate personal details and you know none of mine, but it also makes it harder to trust me, making me look disingenuous.

I am a human being like you, and I’m sure that as we get to know each other, we’ll recognize that we have a lot of shared experiences, feelings, or maybe even likes/dislikes. I will never make your therapy about me, but I also will not pretend that I can’t relate when I can. I will not pretend that I haven’t struggled with similar things when I have. I will always show up as a human first and a therapist second. But I promise I won’t be turning your sessions into opportunities for you to hear my life story. I’ll only share when asked or when appropriate.