If you are thinking that I might be the psychologist to help you then please give me a call. I begin with a free telephone consultation during which we determine if your needs are a match for my skill set. This also gives you an opportunity to ask me any questions to make sure that I am a good match for you. Successful therapy depends on a good therapeutic relationship, so I believe it is important for us to have an opportunity to talk before we schedule an appointment.
Once the appointment has been scheduled, I will email you some more detailed information about my practice and some questionnaires for you to fill out before the first appointment.
When you arrive for the appointment, you will be going to the Northgate Professional Center. There is a free parking lot in the back. I am in Suite 252. When you enter Suite 252, you will have a seat in the waiting room. I will come and get you when it is time for the appointment and show you into my office.
The first session is called an intake appointment. This appointment is about 60- 90 minutes and it is your opportunity to tell me in full detail about the issues that are bringing you to therapy. I will review the questionnaires that you completed and ask some follow- up questions. If the client is a child or adolescent, I will spend some time talking to the child or adolescent alone and some time together with the parent(s). I will also be gathering information during this session in order to make a diagnosis. Finally, I will ask what your treatment goals are in order to create a treatment plan.
At the next session, which will be the usual 45-55 minutes, I will present the results of the assessment and the treatment plan that I created. This treatment plan is something that we will review together, and because I view the treatment plan as a joint effort, I want your feedback to make sure that I have captured your goals. We also can change aspects of this plan at any time if new needs arise. Therapy is a collaborative process.
I come from a cognitive-behavioral background, and that means that my treatment plans for reaching your goals will most likely involve some forms of working on thought patterns, changing behaviors, and learning new skills to be successful.
We will then meet weekly, although in some cases, we may decide to meet more or less often. In most cases, we will continue to meet until we feel that the treatment goals have been met. How long this takes depends on the person. For some, therapy takes a few months, for others, a few years. It is my hope that by engaging in the therapeutic process with me, you will then be able to live the life you want to live.