It is totally up to you! The phone consultation is that first connection conversation where I can hear where you are right now and what you are looking for. It’s an opportunity to ask questions about therapy and get a taste of what it would be like to work with me before committing to that first meeting. It is entirely optional and skippable!

My hope is that the first appointment feels like a conversation. My goal is to better understand your unique struggles, situation, and identify what that successful therapy experience is for you. Once you book your first appointment, I will email you my new client paperwork for you to look over and sign. Most people prefer to fill out the paperwork ahead of time, so they can spend their paid hour in conversation. Our conversation will mainly be me asking you questions about what you are noticing and experiencing now, your story, and how you’d like your future to be. I save some time towards the end to check in on whether you felt understood or if I missed anything and identify any take-aways or anything you would like to practice as a result of this conversation. If helpful and applicable, I send you home with resources that can support you in the time before we meet again.

My style is conversational and collaborative. My hope is that #1 you feel understood and heard and #2 you achieve the successful outcomes you deserve. This starts from the very first phone call where I will be asking you questions to understand your unique struggle and identify what that successful therapy outcome is for you. I am big on having intentional conversations throughout our work together, checking in on what is working or not working for you, what changes you have experienced since starting together and your sense of our progress towards your unique successful therapy experience.

I believe listening, reflecting, and validating are important parts of the process. Neuroscience research supports that these actions help calm our nervous system, which allows us to learn better. However, those are not the only things that I do. I find that people reach their therapy success when we also include time and space to cover actionable strategies and tools to help reinforce the themes that we cover in our conversations. These could look like keeping track of different thoughts/beliefs/feelings as they come up, engaging in journaling prompts or experimenting with small changes in the way you communicate or relate to others and making note of what you notice when you make these changes.

The short answer: it depends on your unique situation, struggles, and goals. That being said, most people start noticing lasting, impactful change when they have been coming regularly for 16-22 sessions (about 3-4 months of regular weekly therapy). Once we start noticing significant, maintained progress we start meeting less often to give you the opportunity to have more time to practice what we’ve been covering in our sessions. Individualized therapy is a key value in my practice, so I will have intentional conversations with you after the first session, 4th session, and every few months after that to make sure that what we are doing is working and you are feeling supported.