What can I expect from a therapy session?
Therapy sessions can bring up many types of feelings for a person. For example you may find yourself crying, laughing, and/or becoming angry in a session. Such reactions are completely normal, and I will be there to help you cope and process your feelings.
Will I be forced or pressured to talk about things I don’t want to talk about?
I do not put pressure on people to disclose information that they are not ready to share. I do help people develop the tools they need to prepare for sharing painful stories.
Is therapy really worth it?
Therapy is absolutely an investment of time and money. Though it is impossible to put a price on an individual’s wellbeing, I find that clients feel their financial investment in therapy is returned to them multifold over time. For example, you may find that a particular session felt like it was "worth" thousands of dollars to you, but you do not actually contribute that much towards the cost of the session!
What’s the difference between the words counseling / counselor, therapy/ therapist, mental health therapy, mental health counseling, and psychotherapy?
There are no standard definitions for these words, and sometimes the words are used interchangeably; other times, the words are used to describe different types of interventions or professional qualifications. In the United States, there are several types of professionals that with graduate degree training and licensing are all qualified to provide mental health therapy and call themselves therapists. They include:
counselors
social workers
marriage and family therapists
psychologists
psychiatrists
psychiatric nurses
These professionals have training that overlaps with one another, but they also have differences in the length and types of their training. After becoming licensed, these professionals are required to participate in continuing education in order to keep their licenses active, and the type of training they chose further differentiates their qualifications.