Whether you seek individual, couples, or family counseling, as I see it, you are the best judge of what configuration of therapy will best suit you (by this, I mean who is included – if you are weighing the possibility of joint sessions – and how frequent and what length of session). You are likely aware that most therapy traditionally runs 50 minutes once a week, and you may also have the perception that therapy is expected to be a long-term commitment, although you may have heard of Brief Therapy that usually entails from two to six months to address specific, concrete goals.
Because I believe that therapy should be adapted to you and your agenda, I seek to configure my schedule to accommodate varying session lengths and frequencies to suit you. While I see good reason therapeutically for the traditional weekly 50-minute standard, I offer options of 75- or 90-minute sessions as well. So, for example, if coming for 90 minutes every other week makes therapy more doable for you, I will accommodate that to the extent my available hours allow. For couples and families in particular, 75 or 90 minutes can be well-advised given that multiple perspectives are in the room needing to be heard. For couples, I urge a 75-minute session as a minimum in order to productively hear and work to reconcile two often very different points of view.
What sometimes brings new clients uncertainty is determining who the client should be - yourself alone, your child alone, you and your child(ren), you and your partner/spouse, or you and whoever your relationship struggle might be with. If you are uncertain about who to include in the therapy, some introductory exploration by phone or email of your particular issues can help settle how best to start, with the possibility of adjusting who attends the sessions, if it seems warranted, within a week or two. (Note that any divorced parent seeking therapy for their child must bring custody documentation to the first session so as to confirm their legal right to decide on therapy for their child - or to get signed release from the other parent as well.)
Therapy typically addresses a multiplicity of issues that are interconnected. In my own practice, that has included (but is not limited to) these areas of therapeutic focus:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Grief
- Shame and guilt
- Anger management
- Trauma (including PTSD) and recovery; treatment utilizing EMDR and TRM
- Stress management, including the stresses of caregiving
- Addiction and recovery
- Suicidal ideation
- Conflict resolution
- Struggles with self-esteem and self-care
- Safety and genuine satisfaction in relationships
- Identity crisis or crossroads crisis
- Adolescent counseling: teenage independence, self-discovery, turmoil
- Couples counseling, including divorce counseling
- Family counseling
- Parenting and co-parenting support, problem-solving and perspective-taking
- Work and career issues: aspirations and realities
