Therapy with me happens wherever you decide to sit.
Your kitchen table. The corner of the couch where you already do most of your thinking.
Nobody has to drive across town for this.
My job in that first session is to help you feel safe and welcome, and to make it easy enough to say the real thing out loud.
Some of what gets said is heavier than either of us is comfortable with.
When that happens, I say something dry and the room loosens up, and then it’s back to work.
Humor is a pressure valve here. It’s not the point.
My clients tell me they feel heard and understood. That’s the part I keep score on.
The first question is how you feel in this moment.
Then comes what’s happened since the last session. The week you actually had.
After that, a small amount of time goes to one skill. What it is, how it works, and what practicing it looks like before I see you again.
One skill at a time.
I never ask for much. I prefer small steps.
Small steps get done. That’s the entire reason I use them.
The measure is whether you did the small thing, and whether this week ran better than the one before it.
Consider yourself the BOSS during the session.
You set the agenda. You pick the skill you want to learn next.
I bring options and I tell you what I think. The call is yours.
A lot of people want to know why they ended up anxious. The why is worth a conversation, and most of the time it still doesn’t change what you do on Thursday morning.
The skills change Thursday morning.
I share pieces of my own mental health history when it fits the moment, then I hand the room back to you.
If you can name what is wrong and you want something to do about it, that is my work.
Depression. Anxiety. ADHD.
A marriage where the two of you talk past each other and have already tried this once before.
Younger adults who did everything right and watched it stop working.
I picked those on purpose. People who know they have a problem show up and do the work, and the work holds.
My professional mission is to help people feel happy more than not.
That amounts to 51% happy. The other 49% is sleep, maybe your job, personal responsibilities you have to attend to, and the times life leaves you feeling unhappy.
I grew up depressed much of the time.
Anxious, pretty much always. ADHD issues were present as well.
That gives me a good sense of what my clients are living with.
The issues eased off slowly. There was a lot of help along the way and I am thankful for it.
Now I pass that help on.
I am a licensed psychologist in several states.
My background is mixed clinical and forensic, built working for two state governments. I worked with very emotionally unstable people in prison, in state hospitals, and in a public government clinic.
About a decade of it was state work.
Four years ago I made the change to work for myself, seeing clients in a telehealth setting.
That decade covered about every presentation there is.
The work I take now is narrower on purpose.
My training is predominantly in CBT and Existential Therapy. The big words stay out of the room.
I have a therapy dog who usually sleeps under my desk. That is the extent of my office staff.
Most people spend a week drafting three sentences to a stranger, then delete them.
Write it badly instead.
I need two things: roughly what is going on, and when you are free.
51% is the target. Small steps are how you get there.
You've been using it on people who decided what you meant before you finished. Use it on somebody whose whole job is hearing the end of your sentence.
Send me an email. Tell me what's going on, in whatever words you've got. Ask how I can help you.
If you'd rather talk first, say so. The consultation is free, by video or phone.