Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

You might consider therapy if you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or if your emotions seem hard to manage. If you find that past experiences keep affecting your current relationships or your ability to enjoy life, therapy could be a supportive space to explore these issues and build new ways of coping.

If your benefits cover Registered Psychotherapist, you may be eligible for reimbursement. Please inquire with your provider to see what your unique plan entails.

If you have coverage, you typically pay for your sessions upfront, and receipts are provided for you to submit to your insurance for reimbursement.

I offer limited spots of sliding scale for clients with financial barriers or those who are full time students. To make therapy more accessible, these low-cost sessions will be available to each eligible new client for up to 6 months. Currently waiting time for sliding scale is 2-6 months. Please refer to fees here.

It's normal to worry about what to say in a first meeting, but it's your therapist's responsibility to help you get the conversation going. The consultation session is often an introduction for both parties. It’s a chance for you to share your story and for the therapist to learn about your concerns. Typically, you will talk about what brings you to therapy, your brief history, and your goals. The therapist explains their approach and answers your questions. It’s a time to build a basic connection and feel if the space is comfortable for you, and it's YOU who is interviewing the therapist, and decide whether you like this therapist or not.

The initial 1-4 sessions is the history-taking phase, aimed at getting a more comprehensive understanding of your life. During this time, the therapist might ask more direct questions regarding your family, relationships, and life experiences, but will do so in a careful and trauma-informed way. This approach ensures that you only discuss what you feel comfortable sharing, and the therapist will refrain from further inquiry if they perceive any reluctance on your part. You will not be expected to talk about anything you feel unsafe to share. Safety and trust takes time to build.

Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic therapy is a form of talk therapy that focuses on how your past experiences, especially from childhood, shape your current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In simple terms, it helps you uncover hidden or unconscious feelings that may be influencing your life now. Even though we will talk about a lot of past experiences, the goal is to bring these feelings to light so you can understand them better at the present moment, and work through unresolved issues, releasing you from past constraints, leading to more self-awareness and freedom in your current and future life.

In our sessions, we will work collaboratively to uncover underlying conflicts and unresolved issues, fostering self-awareness, increasing emotional capacity, and promoting healing from within.

Somatic therapy is a healing method that based on the body-mind connection. It acknowledges that our bodies can retain stress or trauma without our conscious awareness. Instead of only talking about feelings, this therapy helps you tune into physical sensations—like tension or heaviness—and use them as guidance for your healing. The goal is to release built-up tension from past experiences and help you have a better relationship with your body.

Relational therapy centers on the importance of relationships in your life, especially the attachments you developed with your care givers. It looks at how the way you interact with your therapist reflects your interactions with other people. In this approach, the focus is on creating a warm and supportive connection in the therapy room. By exploring these patterns together, you learn how to build healthier, more fulfilling relationships outside of therapy as well.

Trauma refers to an experience that overwhelms your ability to cope. It can be an event or series of events that leave you feeling unsafe, helpless, or deeply disturbed. Trauma affects both your emotions and body, and it can lead to lasting changes in how you relate to the world. It’s not just about what happened, but also about how those events were experienced and stored in your mind and body.

Emotions are the immediate, automatic responses your body has to a situation—like a racing heart or a rush of anger. Feelings are the way you interpret and make sense of those emotions. In simple terms, emotions are the raw data, while feelings are the story you create about that data.

Transference is when feelings and patterns from your past gently mix with your experiences in the present. It happens in every relationship—not just in therapy. For example, if you once felt hurt by someone close to you, you might find yourself reacting similarly when someone today acts in a similar way, even if they’re not the same person and have different intentions. In this way, your past experiences shape your current feelings, and you might unconsciously bring those old emotions into new relationships, including therapy. Analyzing transference in therapy can help you understand yourself better and learn how to form healthier connections.

It's also important to note that not all feelings are due to transference. For instance, if you feel angry at the therapist who arrives late, your anger is justified in the present moment, not solely rooted in past experiences. Only when the anger is disproportionate, there might be transference at play.

Because the relationship is the focus, I encourage both partners to attend sessions. This ensures you both feel comfortable with me and helps us build a foundation of trust and mutual respect together. 

After our 15-minutes consultation call, we will meet for an intake session with both you and your partner present. This is followed by two 50-minute individual sessions for me to learn more about your individually. These can be scheduled during the course of one day or over the course of a couple weeks. 

After the intake phase, most couples benefit from weekly sessions in the beginning. The therapist will help to uncover your relationship patterns and its root causes, and help you to decide whether it is resolvable or endurable. Later on, the sessions will focus on what you bring to the session, especially your conflicts, either during the week or in the past. I encourage you to bring up any concerns you have for therapy at any point in time.

Therapy can be helpful to a lot of couples. Building trust and ensuring safety are essential, whether your goal is to strengthen your relationship or move apart. There may be instances that make it difficult to create safety and trust in session. For example, if there is ongoing physical violence or hidden infidelity, it’s often best to seek individual therapy to address these issues before beginning couples therapy. If you’re unsure whether couples therapy is the right fit for you and your partner, we can talk about your options during a consultation call.

I follow a “no secrets” policy in couples therapy. This means that if you share something with me individually, it may be brought up in future sessions with your partner present. If topics arise that cannot be shared openly, we may need to pause our work together. This approach is essential for creating a safe, honest environment where both partners can feel respected and secure. The goal is to work together in a way that protects both you and your partner, and helps you move forward with clarity and confidence.

You can join sessions from the comfort of your home or any private space. It's better for you to sit together, but it's also OK if you prefer to sit in different rooms. For the best experience, please use Chrome, and make sure you have a strong internet connection and a quiet, private area for uninterrupted conversation. If you experience any technical issues, we can switch to a phone session or reschedule for another time.