Frequently Asked Questions About Therapy
I’m new to therapy, what can I expect in my first session?
All first sessions are get-to-know-you sessions. I encourage all clients to attend weekly sessions at the beginning of our time with each other.
Pre-Teens + Teens
First sessions for pre-teens and teens typically include the pre-teen/teen and any guardians. After the first session, I typically only meet with the pre-teen/teen for sessions, except for full coaching and update sessions, or short check-ins with the guardians.
In our first session, we will talk about guardian involvement; safety, privacy, and confidentiality; and any questions y’all have for me. We will talk about goals, growing up, and any challenges your teen/pre-teen is a having. We might do an activity together to help you get comfortable!
Adults
With individual adults, our first session will consist of discussing any questions you have about the intake paperwork, your personal life story, the community that you live in, who you are and who you want to be, and any issues that you are wanting to work on and heal. Sometimes we don’t get to everything in one session, so we work through the next few sessions to build a therapeutic relationship where you feel comfortable sharing your innermost self. As the therapist, I will go at your pace when we are first meeting each other and share what kinds of therapies I can tailor to your needs that may work best for you.
Relationships + Families
For the first four sessions, I encourage all direct family or partners who will be engaging in the therapy sessions to join. Family and relationship therapy will only work if all members who are involved in the challenges or issues come to sessions on a regular basis.
We will also discuss any questions you have about the intake paperwork, how you met and/or how you formed your family, your family elders and ancestors, your family legacy, who you are as individuals within the family context, and the issues or challenges you are wanting to change and heal. Throughout the first month of sessions, I will slowly introduce how I, as the therapist, can best work with your relationship and family to tailor the healing experience to y’alls needs.
A Note About Virtual Sessions
If you are accessing therapy sessions through the HIPAA-compliant Zoom platform, please log in from a private space with no other adults or children over the age of 6 months present. Pets are always welcome! If you are in a different location that the address you have provided in your intake paperwork, I will ask for you to share your location and address or cross-streets for your safety and in case of an emergency. If you are logging into your session from a car, please have the car parked and do not drive during the session. If you are in a space that isn’t conducive to holding a private therapy session, we may need to cancel and reschedule the appointment.
What is your talk therapy style?
Individual Talk Therapy
I use an eclectic approach that mixes relational-cultural, intersectional feminist, and narrative therapies. These three therapy styles have much in common and also include complementary elements that work well together.
I believe that the cultures and contexts that are a part of our lives affect our relationship with ourself and our communities. Mental health issues are a consequence of social, political, financial, racial, religious, gender, sexuality, and disability stereotyping. In short, the personal is political and all identities are shaped by the stories we develop about ourselves, based on the sociopolitical stories that also influence us.
I help guide you in finding your community, authenticity, empathy, and confidence to help you heal. We are meant to heal in community, not alone. Through the healing process, we collaborate to create a new story for yourself that emphasizes your strengths, authentic self, and agency over the direction of your life within the sociopolitical context.
Relationship and Family Systems Therapies
I have completed Level 1 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. This method was created by Drs. John and Julie Gottman based on extensive consensual couples research. My goals in using aspects of this therapy with clients is to help you increase relational closeness, learn how to address conflict in a productive and more communicative way, and help you build a shared life of meaning together.
I also integrate sex therapy with clients navigating adult relationships. We are all sensuous beings. I collaborate with both individuals and relational clients to find their way back to the idea how pleasure shows up in our lives. Often I see clients who have had inadequate sex education about the act and how our body responds to the act, harmful attitudes around sex, systemic factors that lead to a lack of desire or sexual confidence, and/or a history of sexual trauma. We work together to reduce anxiety, enhance you relationships, and find out how you engage with the idea of eros. Therapy consists of talk therapy online or in a therapist’s office and does not include any sexual acts by either the intimate partner(s) or the therapist. If needed, there may be exercises for you and your partner(s) to complete with each other at home.
When you come to see me for family therapy or relational work, the client I’m working with is your family/relationship. I believe that when a challenge or triumph affects one person, it also affects every other family/relationship member. I believe that the strength and stability of a healthy family unit provides help to family members who need support. Through this type of therapy, I work to help explore intergenerational, sociopolitical, community, and cultural factors that contribute to the context of your family/relationship. This work with you and your family helps us collaboratively build healthy boundaries within and without the family, increase positive relationships, integrate healthy communication patterns, and improve your family’s overall functioning and cohesiveness.
Trauma Therapies
Many people think trauma therapy is only for the big traumas, such as abuse, assault, violence, or car crashes. While trauma therapy can definitely help address symptoms arising from these issues, it is also a great healing tool for other life events, environmental events, or world events that have caused emotional hurt, shame, guilt, physical wounds, sleep difficulties, depression, self-harm, and/or suicidal ideation.
See below for more information on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). I have been either trained and/or certified in using these therapies with clients.
What trauma therapies do you provide?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
The brain is as mysterious as the ocean, we have have a lot of thepries about how distressing memories and trauma works in the brain. With EMDR, the theory is that when a deeply distressing event occurs, the experience may become traumatic. The distressing memories get locked in the brain with the original images, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and sensations. This “locked information” is what often gets triggered by something the person hears, smells, or sees that might remind them of the trauma. This distressing sensory information is often responsible for thoughts and feelings of anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, fear, anger, and other strong emotions.
The goal is to process the sensory information until it is no longer distressing. The goals are to have you remember the distressing memory or trauma but not experience the old emotions or sensations in the present. The person can be informed by their memories, but not controlled by them.
Before beginning EMDR, I will teach you some calming and grounding techniques that we can use together when the therapy gets too intense, or when we are closing a sessions. In EMDR we use eye movements or tapping, called bilateral stimulation, to unlock the system and allow the brain to process the experience and unconscious beliefs or thoughts. It is not required to talk about the details of the traumatic events. Your brain is doing the healing work through the bilateral stimulation.
In between sessions, your brain is still processing in the background. Memories – the same that we are working on or different, related memories - may come up as triggers. Feelings may become more intense and depressive or PTSD symptoms might increase a little bit. When the memory is processed either outside of or inside of session, these symptoms will decrease over time, especially those associated to the original memory that was being processed.
EMDR can also be adapted for use with pre-teens and teens.
Watch the EMDRIA video on how EMDR therapy works, what it is like, and how widely it is recognized.
EMDR Therapy sounds familiar; how does it work?
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
CPT teaches you how to evaluate and change the distressing thoughts you have had since your trauma. The theory is that by changing your thoughts, you can change how you feel.
How trauma affects the brain can change the way you think about yourself and the world. You may believe you are to blame for what happened or that the world is a dangerous place. These kinds of thoughts keep you stuck in distressing thoughts and cause you to miss out on things you used to enjoy.
CPT teaches you a new way to handle these upsetting thoughts. In CPT, you will learn skills that can help you decide whether there are more helpful ways to think about yourself than what the affects of trauma on your psyche are telling you.
CPT is typically a 12-lesson short-term therapy, provided over 12 sessions, attended weekly. Sessions range from 50-80 minutes each. Part of my style of therapy is to go at the client’s pace. If needed, we may decide together to break up the lesson into two or more sessions. Sometimes, we may also only need fewer than the 12 lessons to achieve your goals. I will start off by giving you an overview of the treatment. You will not need to talk about the specific details of your trauma, but you will be asked to talk about your beliefs and feelings related to the trauma. You can choose to do a type of CPT that involves writing about the details of the trauma, but this is optional.
Over the next several sessions, you will talk about any unhelpful thoughts you have been having about the experience. You will use worksheets in session and for homework that help you learn strategies to combat those thoughts. Towards the end of therapy, we will focus on some specific areas of your life that may have been affected by the trauma, including your sense of safety, trust, control, self-esteem, and intimacy.
It may be difficult to talk or write about trauma-related memories or beliefs generally, especially at first. These feelings are usually brief and people tend to feel better as they keep doing CPT. Most people who complete CPT find that the benefits outweigh any initial discomfort.
Watch the Veterans Health Administration’s video introducing CPT for PTSD.
What is Cognitive Processing Therapy?
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
TF-CBT is designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses following child sexual abuse, domestic violence, traumatic loss, and other traumatic events. This therapy is used only with children and teens under the age of 18. TF-CBT addresses your pre-teen/teen’s negative beliefs and sensations related to the abuse and provides a supportive environment where they are encouraged to talk about their experiences. TF-CBT also helps you, as a the safe guardian to cope effectively with your own emotional distress and develop skills that support your pre-teen/teen. Based on research, I believe it is very important for guardians to be involved and supportive, and that your pre-teen/teen’s trauma symptoms need to be addressed as early as possible to prevent any long-term effects.
The goal of TF-CBT is to achieve the following for both the guardians and the pre-teen/teen: increase knowledge about trauma and common reactions; help with parenting and behavior problems; increase relaxation and stress management; increase knowledge about feelings and ways to express them; increase knowledge about your own and your pre-teen/teen’s thoughts, feelings, and actions; develop creative ways for them to tell their stories about what happened; learn and practice safety skills; change any unhelpful thoughts about the trauma; and help the family talk together about the trauma.
TF-CBT is a structured, short-term therapy (4–6 months). This therapy is only effective if at least one safe guardian is involved in the process. I will meet with your pre-teen/teen and you separately once per week. Toward the end of the therapy, I will meet with both you and the pre-teen/teen together for a longer family session.
Pre-teen/teen sessions include helping your kiddo learn how to express and talk about the trauma through expressive arts and creating a written/verbal trauma narrative. Caregiver sessions include coaching you on how to work through your own reactions to your pre-teen/teen’s experiences and how to support them through their healing process. At the end of therapy, you will be providing safety and support to your pre-teen/teen as they show and tell you the narrative of their experiences. TF-CBT can be emotionally challenging. Your pre-teen/teen will talk about difficult and painful memories with the therapist and with you in the family therapy session. Because of this, I recommend caregivers find their own individual therapist, along with the caregiver sessions I will provide as part of your pre-teen/teen’s treatment.
Watch the video by the Texas Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas on how TF-CBT works.
