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  • Amy Steinhauer
  • Krista Wilson
  • Lyrra Isanberg

Philosophy and Approach

When you start therapy with us, 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. It is also a time for your therapist to get to know who you are and what you’re about, and for you to get a sense of your therapist and her style. We value your expertise on your own history and your experience past and present. We bring to the table knowledge of psychology and relationships, experience as psychotherapists, and expertise in our areas of specialization.

We 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 meant to be rigid—it includes instances where you did not do what was planned, but come back with a new understanding of what was hard or why the plan was not the best direction). This is a collaborative process, and the point of it is to move your experience in the direction you want it to go.

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

Online Therapy

We all are aware how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed daily life. In the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed like a terrible idea to do therapy online! However, it has been a pleasant surprise that therapy online works quite well. It’s not exactly the same as therapy in person, but with good internet connections, it has been a good option and has worked very well. An advantage is that we can serve people all over the state of Illinois, not just people who can easily drive to our location. Another advantage is that we can do therapy without masks, which most of us strongly prefer.

We have been on the prudent side of the spectrum regarding COVID precautions. We did begin to open up briefly in the summer of 2021, and then there was another surge. We look forward to the day when we can safely and comfortably reopen to in-person services. At that time, we will adopt a hybrid model, so online services will be available in an ongoing way. We follow the recommendations of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Cook County Department of Public Health, and the City of Evanston’s Health Department. So, for the time being, we continue to meet with our clients virtually over the encrypted Zoom platform. Due to licensing laws, we can only meet with people who are 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.