Discover Yourself Through Individual Therapy

Individual therapy is right for you if you have issues and challenges in your life that you’ve been trying to resolve for some time. If you’ve been attempting to address something on your own without success, therapy can offer you a space to gain a different perspective, build emotional awareness, and begin to identify next steps. If you are in a place where you can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak, therapy allows you to make sense of your problems, clarify your priorities, and move beyond a place of indecision.

During your first session, I prioritize getting you oriented and comfortable with the counseling process. I’ll ask you questions to learn more about you and what brings you to therapy.

We’ll spend some time talking about what your stresses and challenges have looked like for you recently. I’ll then ask you some questions about your history, such as what growing up was like, and about any experiences that were highly stressful or overwhelming in your life that may have had an impact on you. I’ll ask you about your hopes for therapy, and we may set some initial goals or intentions for our work together.

Therapy can help with a variety of mental health challenges, stressors, and life transitions. Therapy is not just for times when you feel overwhelmed by mental health symptoms; it can also be a place to clarify what you want and determine your next steps.

In my practice, I specialize in helping people work through anxiety, climate distress, religious trauma, low self-esteem, and body image challenges. You can read more about the primary issues I treat on my services page.

I recommend planning to meet weekly, at least for the first 6-8 sessions. This allows you time to get settled into the therapy process so that we can dive in and make some initial progress on your goals. After that, some people find it helpful to continue weekly until they meet their goals for therapy, and others find it useful to eventually space out their sessions to biweekly or monthly. Sessions are 60 minutes long.

How long our work together will take can vary from person to person and depends on your specific goals, the depth of your struggles, and your commitment to the process. Some people can meet their therapy goals within 1-3 months, while others benefit from the deeper work than longer term therapy can provide. I’ll give you a more tailored recommendation after we meet and I am able to learn more about your specific needs.

I provide the option to utilize either in-person or online therapy, or a mix of both. My in-person office is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, Texas.

I also offer online therapy via a secure video platform. I’m able to work with you over video if you are a resident of Texas. If you’re local to Houston, you may also be interested in a hybrid option where you come to some in-person sessions and some online sessions.

I take a collaborative approach to setting therapeutic goals, so we’ll work together to identify your intentions and hopes for therapy. My approach is oriented towards your values and what will make a meaningful life, so I’ll guide you to notice what’s getting in the way of this and what could be a fulfilling direction to move in.

If you don’t know what your goals are, that’s ok, too. We can start out just exploring how you’ve been feeling, and goals often emerge from that exploration process. I am also flexible in re-adjusting our goals as we go along if your needs change.

This is a common concern, so you are not alone. I’ll guide the process for our first few sessions as I get to know you and why you’re coming to counseling. This may give you some warm-up time to feel more comfortable bringing up topics on your own eventually.

It’s also ok if you continue to be unsure of what to talk about - I’m a patient therapist who’s comfortable with our work moving a bit slowly if it needs to. We’ll gradually get a sense of what’s best to focus on as you feel more comfortable opening up over time. I may also bring in structured ways of interacting if that helps, such as therapeutic activities or short articles that we can read together and discuss, if you need some help finding a place to start.

We’ll work together to identify what progress means to you. For some people, progress involves a reduction of anxiety or depression symptoms. For others, progress looks like being able to do things you weren’t able to before, such as advocate for yourself, set boundaries, or try new things. Therapy can sometimes be a nonlinear journey, so progress can also look like being kinder to yourself when you continue to struggle with certain things, or easing up on any unreasonable standards you may have about what healing should look like.

I will check in on how progress is feeling for you periodically, but I also welcome you to notice your growth and bring up questions about it if you’re uncertain whether we are making adequate progress.

Yes, everything you share in therapy is confidential, although there are a few legal exceptions where I may have to disclose confidential information:

• If you express intent to act on suicidal or homicidal thoughts, or if I determine that there is a probability of imminent physical injury by you to yourself or others, or there is a probability of immediate mental or emotional injury to you.
• If I believe or suspect that a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person has been or will be abused or neglected.
• If I receive a properly issued subpoena from the court or order from a presiding judge, or if there is a request from the state licensing board for your records.
• If I have reasonable cause to suspect that you have been the victim of sexual exploitation by a mental health services provider during the course of treatment by that provider, or if you allege sexual exploitation by a mental health service provider during the course of treatment by that provider. (You have the right to remain anonymous if a report of this nature is required.)

Aside from these exceptions, your privacy is fully protected. I aim to create an environment where you feel safe and comfortable to fully share your experiences. I am happy to discuss any concerns you may have about confidentiality in more detail when we meet.