Frequently Asked Questions

I am not in-network with any insurance companies. Please see this article by Dr. K. Hixson if you’re interested in why therapists make the decision not to work with insurance companies, which lays it all out better than I could here: Ten Reasons Why Your Mental Health Provider Stopped (or Never Started) Taking Your Insurance

If your insurance plan offers out-of-network coverage for mental health benefits, you may be able to submit an invoice and receive partial reimbursement for the cost of our sessions. When looking into this with your insurance company, be sure to ask if there is a deductible you must meet, and if there is a copay or percentage of the cost that you will be responsible for. Insurance companies usually require that I give a DSM diagnosis in order to reimburse sessions. If you decide to go this route, we will have a discussion about an appropriate diagnosis before I add that to your file. I will never give a diagnosis without discussing it with you first.

I currently see clients from 11am-4pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

For new clients, I will meet with you weekly or every other week at a standing appointment time (unless you have an unexpected conflict come up and need to reschedule.) Long-term clients who are ready to reduce their frequency of sessions are welcome to self-schedule for periodic check-ins as openings in my calendar become available.

As of September 5th, 2023, I am offering both online and in-person sessions. In-person sessions take place in my office in SE Portland. Online therapy is available to anyone in the state of Oregon.

I can relate! It can be tough to find a therapist you click with. If you’ve had a negative past experience with therapy, I want to hear about it so that I can get a clear idea of your needs and figure out as quickly as possible whether working together feels like a good fit.

Many of my clients say that they’ve had past experiences with therapists who seemed passive and disengaged. That’s not me. While giving you plenty of space to tell your story and be heard is an important component of therapy, listening and nodding isn’t all I’ll do. You’ll find me to be a warm, active and engaged presence during your sessions.

This is a hard question to answer because it depends on a lot of factors specific to each person. Some people find that they meet their goals and complete therapy in a relatively brief amount of time - say, a few months. On the other hand, I have some clients that I’ve met with for years who continue to see benefits from ongoing therapy. Sometimes, people leave for a while and then return as new issues crop up in their lives.

Whatever course of therapy is right for you, I do expect clients to see at least some benefit after working together for a few sessions, especially once we jump into the thick of trauma processing. I will check in with you regularly to make sure that we’re seeing progress from our work, and collaborate with you on making adjustments if we’re not.

The short answer is yes. Trauma processing therapy is most effective when clients are doing some work outside of session to keep things moving. I will ask you to do various things in between our sessions so that our in-session work is as effective as possible.

However, I cringe a little at the term “homework” because of its association with worksheets – which I hate – and with boring assignments that don’t have any relation to someone’s actual life. This won’t be that kind of homework. I’ll make sure what I’m asking you to do outside of session seems feasible, useful and relevant to your specific needs.

Probably. If you have a diagnosis that carries a lot of stigma and you’re worried about it scaring therapists off (or you’ve had a past experience where this has happened), let’s talk about it. I emphatically don’t believe that any particular mental health diagnosis disqualifies someone from trauma processing therapy.

For clients with a diagnosis of a dissociative disorder, I will assess carefully and we will decide collaboratively whether you are ready to proceed with trauma processing work at the current time.

If you have a diagnosis that is outside my area of expertise (such as OCD or a substance use disorder) and we notice at some point the symptoms are making trauma processing work difficult or impossible, we will pause the process and I will refer you to someone who specializes in targeted treatment for that diagnosis before we proceed further.