Why Me?
There are a lot of therapists in the Sacramento area - the good news for you as a consumer is that you have plenty of options to choose from. That said, how do you tell whether someone’s a good ‘fit’ for you or not? It’s an important decision: the quality of the client-therapist relationship is the second largest factor influencing therapeutic outcome (whether or not therapy is successful). So, I encourage you to invest the time and energy necessary to make a good choice.
Now, why do I think should you set up an appointment to come see me ? Well, read on ...
I use feedback to help improve the quality and effectiveness of my work
At the start and end of every session, I’m going to have you complete a simple feedback tool, which takes less than a minute to complete. However, it accomplishes two important things:
1) It gives us a concrete way to measure progress. From research, we know that if people are going to benefit from therapy, there is some improvement pretty quickly - generally within the first few sessions. So, if there isn’t some improvement happening early on, we’ll determine what needs to be changed in our work together to help bring about progress.
2) You’ll have a simple way to offer feedback on each session, and I’ll use that feedback in structuring our future sessions together.
While no therapist can guarantee results (in fact, such guarantees are a violation of MFT ethical codes), I think the use of feedback does help improve the odds of you achieving your therapy goals.
I use a flexible, client-focused approach
One of the great things about us humans is that we often can achieve the same goal in a lot of different ways. What this means for our work together is that we can approach this work in a way that works better for you, instead of me trying to push the ‘right approach’ on you. Research studies have shown that the techniques used only account for 15% of therapeutic effectiveness, and that no one technique is demonstrably superior to another.
While I do provide 50 minute office sessions, which is pretty ‘standard’ for therapy (because it works well for many people), I also realize that’s not the right fit for everyone. I’m also happy to provide services online or via telephone, and I offer shorter ‘flash’ sessions for people who prefer a more structured and frequent approach to therapy.
I’m not a ‘blank screen’
You may have heard about or experienced the ‘emotionless’ therapist who is keeping their thoughts and feelings under wraps. You may have sat in the office therapist who waits for you to speak, even if you’ve never been in therapy before and don’t know what to do. You may have come out of a therapy session wondering why you were paying to hear yourself speak for an hour If that doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry - you won’t see it in my office.
I’m a real person, with feelings, opinions, and life experience in addition to my clinical training and experience. I’m here to help people have better relationships - and part of what makes that process successful is the nature of our relationship, which we can’t have if I’m not a ‘real’ person in the room. So, while you will get the benefit of my professional knowledge, skill, and experience, you’ll also get a relationship with a real human being.
Actually, maybe you shouldn’t see me ...
Seriously - I’m not the right fit for everyone. I don’t work with young children, for example, and there are subjects, such as post-partum depression, that I’m not an expert on. If you aren’t sure, give me a call anyway. I’m happy to do a no-risk initial session with you, and I’ve built up a pretty good referral network of local clinicians who I respect and trust, so there’s a good chance that if I can’t help you, I know a good therapist who can.