Coming to therapy can really be a tough decision. Finding the right therapist for you can be daunting.
A scary decision. Especially if it’s your first time. There are many therapists out there. Finding the right therapist for you is key. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable with the therapist that you’re working with. No matter what type of therapy they do. The number one thing is do you feel safe and comfortable. The next key step, is this the right therapist for the goals you want to achieve in therapy?
I wanted to take this moment to introduce myself. Allow myself to give you a little bit of who I am, what I focus on, and what you can expect from therapy.
I have been practicing for close to 15 years now. This year will be 15 years. It’s gone by really quick and worked, as most therapists, through non-profits as they work towards their license. Close to the end, I realized I enjoy working with those who have experienced trauma in their past. Either growing up as a child with a series of different difficult experiences. Experiences that tend to get carried on through to adulthood.
A lot of times when we have difficult experiences, we carry certain beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about the world. We carry it into adult relationships and find ourselves stuck in a similar relationship that we grew up with.
A lot of times we try our best not to do that and to try to do the exact opposite. Somehow it just happens. As I was working with clients, I realized the type of therapy that I was practicing, called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization, and Reprocessing), was so effective with the clients that I was working with.
Seeing the transformation of those clients has really given me more passion to share it with others.
In another video, I’m going to explain a little bit more about EMDR, as well as other therapies that I now incorporate it with. I just wanted to give you a little bit of my background and what you can expect when you start therapy with me.
When you give me a call, I try to ask questions to make sure that we are the right fit. Am I the right therapist in the sense of what you’re looking for? What your goals are for therapy? What you’re wanting out of therapy? And the type of therapy that I do is right for what your goals are. Once we square that out of the way, we discuss schedules and fees to make sure that our schedules will work together.
We can work on a weekly basis, I feel it’s so important to meet once a week because I find that clients just progress more and more quickly with that as well as with EMDR it’s just important that I am checking in with you each week just to make sure that things are going pretty smoothly.
Every two to three months, I’m checking to make sure that we are sticking to the goals you originally came in for. Are we on the right track? Do we need to tweak them a little bit? Do we need to adjust them a little bit? Or maybe you’ve worked through some of the things you originally came in for, but now you’re realizing there’s other things that you want to focus on. We talk a lot about your goals. Making sure that we’re checking that we’re on the right path. Depending on what you’re coming in for, I will focus on some coping skills right away. If you feel pretty ready to dive in, then we’ll dive in pretty quickly.
The right therapist will meet you where you’re at.
It’s so important that you’re feeling just as ready to move forward. I will never force you to do anything that you’re not ready for. We will take small steps if we need to. Once we work through some of the more difficult things that you might have experienced, we then check in with what you need now.
Do you need to learn how to express yourself? Some communication skills? Learning how to stand up for yourself? Are those things that you need next before you end therapy? Part of the coping skills is to make sure you have the tools to use once you leave therapy. These are tools you can always come back to.
I can’t take all the problems of the world away. I can’t take all the problems that will come up in your life down the road. But, I can give you the tools that you need to manage them and get through them when they come up.
When we realize you’ve met your goals and things are going smoothly, we don’t stop right away. I will slow down to every other week or once a month to make sure things continue to run smoothly. Then once we do, it does not mean you have to end forever or that you cannot come back. Therapy can come in phases. Maybe you don’t need to come back. Maybe there’s another series of stressors that came all at once and you just need to re-charge. We can meet again.
I wanted to give you a bit of my background. Give you video too so that you can get to know who I am. If I’m the right therapist for you, if you would like to learn more about the therapy I practice, I’m happy to talk with you . My areas of focus are anxiety, panic attacks, developmental trauma, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder and a lot of my therapies mainly focus around those areas.
Again, if you are wanting to know a little bit more, making sure that we are the right fit, please definitely check out my website. I’d be able to talk with you further.