About Therapy With Me

I am curious, collaborative, and non-pathologizing. I will really try to put you at ease, get to know you well, and value who you are. I am also a human in the room with you, and strive for mutual authenticity.

When you start therapy with me, the first session or couple of sessions generally involve discussing your goals, intentions, what you want to understand or see change, and making plans together for how to get you there. In relationship therapy, I often schedule an individual appointment with each partner as well, to get to know you and your history in a more focused way. These first sessions are also a time for me to get to know who you are and what you’re about, what your values are, and what’s important to you, and for you to get a sense of me and my style as well. I value your expertise on your own history and your lived experience, past and present. I bring to the table knowledge of psychology and relationships, decades of experience as psychotherapist, and expertise in my areas of specialization.

I ask you to be an active participant in your therapy to get the most out of it. Of course, healing doesn’t happen in 50 minutes a week. This means that you actively reflect on our discussion in session, participate in developing and refining the plan, and follow through with any out-of-session work (this is not rigid—it includes instances where you did not do what we together planned, but come back with a new understanding of what was hard or why our plan was not the best direction). This is a collaborative process with the goal of moving your experience in the direction you want it to go.

I will also be an active participant, and will welcome feedback from you about your experience of therapy. I will periodically check in about progress, and whether you are getting what you want out of this process.

Telehealth, In-Person Availability 

I have found it to be a pleasant surprise that therapy online works quite well for most people. It’s not exactly the same as therapy in person, but with good internet connections and privacy, it has worked very well. An advantage is that I can serve people all over the state of Illinois, not just people who can easily drive to my location, and it takes the commute time out of the equation, even for local clients. I use only HIPAA compliant platforms for telehealth, usually the healthcare version of Zoom (though I have back-ups if needed).

I realize that some clients will still prefer in-person services. While I hope to return to in-person work at some point, for the time being I am only offering telehealth.

Due to licensing laws, I can only meet with people who are actually in the state of Illinois during the time of the session. Therapy is considered to take place where the client is at the time – place of residence does not matter. My professional association is actively working on an interstate compact proposal that would allow me to practice via telehealth in states who join the compact, but this is still a work in progress.