FAQ

We’ll meet through either secure online video sessions or over the phone. Video offers an extra level of connection that the phone doesn’t give, but sometimes phone calls are convenient to connect from wherever you are.

I work with individual adults who are interested in learning about themselves through a process of mindfulness and self-study.

Typical therapy sessions are 50 minutes, and I recommend meeting weekly when we get started.

This gives us enough frequency and consistency to get to know one another and support you as you move in the direction you want to be going. As time passes and needs change, bi-weekly or monthly options are available.

My approach to therapy doesn’t involve homework assignments or a specific structure.

During your course of therapy, you’ll gain new insights. I’ll recommend and encourage certain activities to support their integration, be mindful of things coming up, or focus on actions you feel are needed.

I require 24 hours’ notice to avoid being charged your session fee. We’re human, life happens, and things come up unexpectedly… so, this isn’t written in stone. But 99% of the time, this rule applies.

There are few things I like less than charging someone for a service they don’t receive. I don’t like doing it and strongly prefer not to, but I must have boundaries for my own peace of mind and well-being.

I offer you a safe and nonjudgmental presence where you can have all your feelings and vulnerabilities – where you can be as fully yourself as you want to be. If you need to talk through something, the floor is open to you. And, when you’re ready, we can work together to help you study the organization of your experience.

This means learning how to practice being mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations in your body that arise in the present moment. When you do this, you connect with yourself and know the true feelings, reactions, habits, and attitudes that are normally outside your present awareness.

You get to know yourself better. Old wounds get tended to and healed. Feelings are discovered. Edges are expanded. And you deepen and fill out the best of yourself while recognizing and letting go of what doesn’t belong to you.

This process has been described as assisted self-discovery, and that is what we’ll do together.

If you’re feeling called to reach out for help or want to understand yourself better…

If you want to know more about what you feel, need, why you react certain ways, or why things might not be working that well in your relationships…

Or if you just want to feel better in general but don’t really know how to make the changes alone…

…then therapy can be of great benefit!

I practice somatic psychotherapy, which is by nature an “experiential” form of therapy. It’s sometimes talking about things, but at its core, it is about a felt experience.

The body offers all kinds of information and holds all the wounds, patterns, and unconscious reactions that create limitation and inner conflict.

We’ll practice being mindful, turning your attention to the here and now. Often, the first place we attend to is the felt sense in the body. Every stress we’ve ever had is experienced as some form of tension or collapse in the body. Some of those never leave; they get ingrained and stored there for the long term.

By accessing the felt sense in the body, we connect with your past and present… your strengths and vulnerabilities… and unpack what we find to reveal the essence of who you are.

We often spend time talking about what’s going on – any specific challenges, needs, wins, or goals you have. As we both understand what that is, we gently shift toward studying that in mindfulness. This begins with naturally connecting with and unpacking how this feels… and whatever else is connected to it.

We can do experiments to support this process. Experiments can be as simple as making contact with a part of your body (e.g., a hand to your heart), studying what comes up when you hear a particular statement, or even “trying on” movements, gestures, or automatic reactions that have been noticed and named. This process deepens awareness and connection with your felt experience.

Toward the end of the session, we’ll work on “resourcing” this experience, helping you to deepen, stabilize, and feel the nourishment of what we’ve discovered.

Glad you asked! 🙂

There is nothing quite like being present with someone – being present with their own experience. It’s like being with being.

There’s nothing more rewarding than assisting and supporting another as they allow unexpressed emotions and feelings; get to know themselves in a deeper, more accepting and compassionate way; and move through barriers they didn’t even know they had.

To watch another person grow, thrive, and learn to value themselves… stand up for themselves… and be okay being themselves… is a life-affirming process like no other.

Therapy incorporates the whole of a person: mind, body, and spirit. The essence, or spirit, of who you are is always present.

We’ll explore how limiting ideas about yourself get stuck in the body and the mind, thereby constricting what you believe to be possible about yourself and your life. When you overcome these obstacles, growth happens, and, in a sense, your spirit – your unique being – is freed from limitation or identification with what’s inherently not yours (what has been learned or conditioned through some experience).

In that sense, therapy is in service to living in connection with the real you. It helps you to breathe and live more freely as you connect to the present moment of your existence.

When the therapy space becomes a dumping ground for stress and is all about venting, this can be the case. But that’s not how I work, and I make it a practice not to take on others’ issues.

The journey we embark on together is not about venting or even “fixing you.” In fact, it’s not even about your fixing yourself.

The magic of therapy comes from its facilitation of “organicity,” the inherent movement toward wholeness and healing in nature and our bodies. When we attune to what is being experienced in the here and now, awareness naturally develops. And through awareness, possibilities are seen, barriers are overcome, integration occurs, and healing happens naturally.

Therapy can be a very meditative experience, allowing you to witness the beauty at the heart of humanity.