How does therapy work?

Together, we will work to create goals that we can work towards to help you improve areas of your life.  Those goals could be to improve relationships, decrease depressive symptoms or anxiety, improve work satisfaction, and many more.  These goals will be updated periodically to tailor treatment to your current needs.  

How can therapy help me?

There are many benefits in participating in therapy. Therapists can provide support and help you find relief for issues such as trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, stress, and relationship problems. Counseling is extremely valuable in managing personal growth, relationships, and the many challenges faced in daily life. By applying therapy techniques, therapists can provide different perspectives on complicated problems or even guide you to a solution.

As a therapist, it is not my job to give you answers to your problems, rather, it is to help you facilitate insight and understanding to help you make more informed choices that will lead to a healthier, happier lifestyle.  

What do sessions look like?

The first many sessions will be spent getting to know you, building rapport and trust, and establishing the goals we want to work towards.  Around 50% of what determines successful therapy depends solely on the relationship between the client and therapist.  

Follow-up sessions will check-in on previous weeks, address current concerns, and work to discuss skills/tools to improve.

Since there are about 112 awake hours in a week, and we would only be meeting most likely 1/112 per week, I often ask you to practice the skills learned in session throughout the following week.   

Medication and/or Therapy

If I had to pick one, I would generally suggest therapy over psychotropic medication.  Often times a behavior/environmental change is needed for symptoms to improve, and medication cannot change these things. The combination of psychotropic medication and therapy can often times be an option, and if this is a route that you want to pursue, we will discuss it.

Will our conversations remain confidential?

Confidentiality is a key component of therapy. What you discuss in a session will not be shared with anyone else. By law, your therapist can’t release this information without your written consent, except in the following situations:

• The therapist suspects there is past or present abuse or neglect of children, adults or elders.
• The therapist suspects the client is in danger of harming themselves or has threated to harm another person.
• There is a subpoena from a judge requesting records.