Frequently Asked Questions

Sessions are conducted exclusively via online therapy and are available to all California residents.

My “office” is located in Los Angeles, so you know where I am logging in from! I offer appointments Monday through Friday between the hours of 9am and 5pm based on availability. We will discuss exact appointment options for you during our phone consultation. 

Wherever you feel most comfortable or works best with your schedule on the day! That is part of the beauty of online therapy. No traffic, no parking drama, and no rushing to get to/from work or home to your appointment.

If you are home during our meeting, feel free to get cozy in your favorite chair, your bedroom, your backyard. Anywhere that you can feel as safe and private as possible. If you’re at work, I have many clients who reserve a private meeting room in their building or take their appointments from any closed-door office space with a “do not disturb” posting.

I have also had clients take their appointments from their car if the weather permits, ensuring utmost privacy when out and about. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable, safe and away from earshot of others.

My fee is $200 per individual therapy session. I offer limited sliding scale appointments based on your income and ability to pay. If you need a reduced fee, please let me know. If I am unable to accommodate your financial situation, I will try my best to assist you in finding appropriate referrals.

I do not accept insurance directly and am an Out of Network Provider. I do offer “Superbills” which I can provide for you to submit to your insurance carrier for your direct reimbursement. I suggest calling your insurance ahead of our first appointment and asking them what your benefits include for seeing an out of network, licensed mental health provider. 

I know it might be a bummer to find a therapist that you’re excited to work with, only to find out that you can’t use your insurance directly. I have chosen not to work directly with insurance companies anymore for one key reason:

+ By not using a “third party payer” (your insurance), I maintain your confidentiality as my client, and you maintain your agency as decision-maker regarding your care. If your insurance is directly paying for your mental health services, it grants them the right to request your files and notes from our sessions, so that they can determine whether or not you “meet eligibility” to receive mental healthcare. This means that someone who has never met you or knows anything about your story could decide that you aren’t “ill enough” to receive therapy! This goes against the ethics of my practice, and my assertion that YOU reserve the right to decide what therapy you receive, for what problems, and for how long. 

Sessions are 50 minutes long– aka the “therapy hour,” which gives me a 10 minute break between appointments and keeps me running on schedule!

I require 24 hour notice if you intend to cancel or reschedule your appointment in order to prevent your being charged my full rate for the session.

The easiest way for you to set up your initial appointment with me is to book your free consultation call. This is a chance for me to learn a bit more about why you’re seeking therapy at this time, and for me to share how I work and answer any questions you may have; we will also discuss scheduling so we can get your first appointment in the books. If you would like to contact me with any questions before scheduling your free call, you may also shoot me an email.

No one will have access to your file without your expressed, written authorization. Your insurance does not have access as I am out of network. Your partner does not have access either (in fact, confidentiality goes so far that even if they call or email me asking about you, I legally cannot respond or acknowledge that you are my client). As for another member of your care team, such as a primary care doctor or psychiatrist, some clients grant authorization for me to outreach and collaborate with them to ensure continuity of your care and/or exchange important information. But they do not have access to your files, only to a phone call with me. We will always explore together if this option is relevant to your therapy, and I will never make any calls without your verbal and written permission.

You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical care will cost. Under the law, health care providers need to give clients/patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.

+ You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency items or services. This includes related costs like medical tests, prescription drugs, equipment, and hospital fees.

+ Make sure your health care provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least 1 business day before your medical service or item. You can also ask your healthcare provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule an item or service.

+ If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill.

+ Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate. For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises or call 800-985-3059.

I work primarily with Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z folks. I am LGBTQIA+ affirmative and welcome all genders into my practice.

I exclusively work with individual clients. If you are interested in couples therapy, I am happy to provide you with referrals to some of my trusted colleagues who work with couples.

My work is primarily informed by Postmodern Therapy practices: Narrative, Solution Focused and Collaborative Language modalities. This basically means that my approach is non-hierarchical and non-pathologizing. Meaning, I do not view you as an “unwell person” coming to me, an expert and authority figure, for help. I do view you as a whole and unbroken person, who is struggling against some pretty intense problems that are impacting the quality of your life and relationships. While I do of course have specialized training, knowledge and experience in the therapy space, you are the expert in you– and that makes us a powerhouse team. Together, we co-create your path for healing. Think of it this way: I know how to get us to your destination, but you’re the one in the driver’s seat.

I have been a therapist since 2013 and have been licensed and working in private practice since 2016. My clinical experience also spans non-profit, intensive outpatient, community and school-based settings both as a treating therapist and as a clinical supervisor to pre licensed therapists. I work most effectively with varying flavors and intensities of anxiety related to overthinking and worry, relationship stress, family dysfunction, work issues, perfectionism, people/parent pleasing, performance pressure, imposter syndrome, burnout, and big life transitions.

There will be some sessions where you arrive ready with something you want to focus on and talk about. I love a good outline, and we’ll make sure to structure our time together so that you walk away with what you needed from the work that day. And then there will be some sessions where you have no idea what you want to talk about! Don’t stress. Some of the best therapeutic work has come from starting a session without an agenda. This is actually a great way to practice letting go of expectations and simply show up with a curious mindset, make a discovery and find out what happens.

That depends on what your needs are! Some therapy goals are short-term focused and time bound. Maybe you’re dealing with a sticky decision that has a deadline and needs to be made pronto, or you’re facing some acute stress due to a major issue in your life. Our roadmap for your care (your “treatment plan”) will account for the fact that you’ve got to get to the other side of your problem asap.  Other therapy goals are long-term and require a deeper, juicier experience to create change. We will spend the first session or two getting clear about your values and what goals we are targeting; then I’ll base a proposed timeline off of those values & goals. I believe that therapy is never “finished,” and there’s no such thing as “termination.” You’re either active or inactive in therapy, as your goals and desires for your life are ever-evolving. Once we have completed our initial work together, my door is always open for you to decide to graduate to fewer sessions or meet on an as-needed basis for “tune ups.” 

Therapy is an introspective process of shifting your focus inward, towards yourself, in order to explore behavior patterns, narratives and coping strategies that you picked up at some point along your journey as a means of survival, but perhaps now pose a barrier to creating and maintaining healthy relationships (to yourself and/or others), or no longer serve any helpful purpose. Therapy hopes to encourage you to cultivate your inner voice of compassion, understanding and acceptance in order to build and maintain meaningful relationships to yourself and your surrounding world, both by strengthening what is working well for you and developing new patterns, narratives and coping strategies to support this process.

TLDR: Therapy is the work of digging deep and getting to know yourself.

Therapy with me is a dynamic, engaging process of questions and conversation. There is no simply nodding along with “Mm-hm’s” from behind a legal pad around here. I use a strategic and intentional series of questions inspired by solution-focused and strengths-based therapy practices to assist you with building your own insight and self-awareness. Then, we take that insight and help you apply to “the real world” (aka your life and relationships outside of the therapy room).

Some therapists might call this homework, but since you’re probably here because you identify with being a high achiever, we won’t call it that. There is no grade, no pass or fail. Applying your insight to your real world in actionable ways (such as using clear communication, setting boundaries, embracing your limits and having healthy coping skills) is more of an invitation to explore doing things differently, and then see how the experiment unfolds. In your following therapy sessions, we will discuss how the “experiment” went for you the preceding week. And if you did not get to the experiment, that’s okay! This is a great opportunity to explore what got in the way (whether it was a physical barrier or a mental block or both– because Change. Ain’t. Easy.)

What a fabulous question. 

The core values of my work as a therapist are:

+ Curiosity: A question is not a question if you already know the answer. And while what you do know certainly has its place and is mega important, it’s the things that you don’t yet know that are your ingredients for change, lying in wait. We can’t even begin to scratch the surface of the unknown without a heapful of curiosity. This is where the work begins. 

+ Connection: What is statistically proven to matter the most in your therapeutic experience is the relationship you have with your therapist. Not their background, experience or expertise. Not how long they have been in the field or where they got their degree. It’s. The. Relationship. When we share an authentic connection, we build trust, safety, equity and respect.

+ Collaboration: I am not in this to work harder for your change than you are willing to work for yourself. Our therapy together is a collaborative experience that requires both of us to show up with effort and intention.

Your life lives in the details, and I care deeply about capturing and remembering the things that make you who you are. My clients have repeatedly expressed how much they appreciate my investment in their details. That I remember the name of their childhood best friend, their first dog, their siblings or their favorite grandparent. That I remember that hard thing they were facing last month and the toll it took on their self-compassion and sense of worth. That I remember and remind them of why they said they were seeking therapy in the first place when we had our first call together, and I come back to their “why” time and again, like a North Star guiding them towards their truth. I will reflect your own language back to you, for the words that you use to describe your experiences matter; and I will quote you in later sessions, perhaps at the perfect moment when you need to hear your own wisdom far more than mine.

Awkward, right? Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be. Should we chance a meeting in the wild, I will never initiate acknowledgement and will always let you take the lead and proceed with how you feel most comfortable. Completely ignore the run-in and walk the other direction? No problem. Pretend not to know me if we are introduced? Copy that. Say hello and introduce me to whoever you’re with? Happy to engage. Shout from across the room, “OMG this is my therapist!” Hello everyone, nice to meet you!

I’m working on it. But in the meantime, we have the magic that is your willingness to do the work ;-).