FAQ

My office is located on the border of South Pasadena and Alhambra.

1961 Huntington Dr. Ste 202

Alhambra, CA 91801

I can see anyone virtually as long as you’re in California.

I’m currently paneled with Aetna and Optum (many insurance companies under that umbrella such as Oxford and United). Please reach out and we’ll find out together what it would look like financially to work with me.

I can prepare a “Superbill” for you. If your insurance covers out-of-network providers, you could get reimbursed for our sessions.

Let’s start with a 15-minute phone or video consultation where you can ask me all your questions in person, and I can make sure I’m the right clinician for you.

If it feels like a good fit, I’ll send you intake paperwork, and we’ll set up your first appointment.

I need a 24-hours notice for cancellations.

This allows me to plan accordingly, either filling that slot with another client or working on other things.

Great question! I can tell you what clients generally enjoy working with me so that you can know for yourself.

• You’ve struggled with anxiety or depression for many years and not gotten consistent relief from typical talk therapy or medication.
• You’ve been diagnosed with (or think you have) PTSD or have a known trauma history and found that previous therapy moved too fast or too slow. We’ll proceed based on how you feel – not a specific agenda.
• You’re not sure if you have a disorder but know you want to improve your thoughts and feelings about your life.
• You are in a high-conflict family. I provide therapy to children and adults going through a divorce.
• You need help with parenting or co-parenting.
• You are getting into a new relationship and want to do it right. (I do not provide couples therapy, though – just therapy to individuals working on their relationships.)
• You are contemplating, in the process of, or have just left a relationship.
• You are a young adult just leaving (or wanting to but struggling to leave) “the nest.”

For anxiety, depression, and PTSD, we will first have 1-3 sessions of talking. During this time, I will gather more information from you about your childhood and what your life is like right now.

This is the time for you to tell me what you want to accomplish in therapy so we can write your treatment goals. Treatment goals help us know what to focus on in our sessions and show us how close you are to be done with therapy!

After you’ve had a chance to ask all your questions and I feel like I understand where you’re coming from, we’ll start Somatic Breathwork, eventually alternating it with talk therapy. The schedule is not set in stone. This method is relatively flexible, but I’ve found that four breathwork sessions get things going and provide relief to many. It gives you a chance to get a feel for how it goes.

Then, we’ll alternate one session of talk therapy with one session of breathwork. Again, this is flexible, so you can switch it up if you feel one type of session suits you better that day. I aim to allow space to process current issues while keeping us on track with healing the past.

I’ve had clients who only needed about three months of breathwork before they felt amazing and were ready to conquer the world! Some clients take 12-15 months, but that’s usually because we are also processing current crises. I definitely give space and allowance for that in our work. The most common graduation time is about eight months.

For anxiety, depression, and PTSD, we will do Somatic Breathwork.

We’ll alternate with talk therapy sessions as needed. In a Breathwork session, I check in for a few minutes to see how things are going, and then we begin breathing. I guide you into the feelings you’re having and back out, all during our session.

In a talk session…

We can verbally process what happened in Breathwork sessions, especially in the beginning when you are just learning how your past connects to today. These are amazing sessions in your psychology, and clients love to self-analyze and hear my thoughts on what came up for them.

But as time passes, you’ll find you don’t need to do this. The Breathwork itself resolves thoughts and feelings about the stories that come up. They lose their charge and aren’t important. Instead, we start focusing on how the healed you is navigating the real world.

How will you respond to your dad’s judgments now that they no longer trigger you?

What issues will you bring up to your coworkers now that you no longer fear their rejection?

If you are seeing me for help with a relationship transition…

I am a good sounding board, but I’ll also validate, empathize, and support you during this tumultuous time in your life. The arc of treatment usually proceeds from supporting as you go through the tough times… to talking about how to move forward in life… to teaching relationship skills, you’ll need as you go back into the world – whether you’re ready to date again or want to lay low for a while.

My only agenda is to make sure you’ve fully processed this tough time, see that you’ve learned the most you possibly could from the experience, and set you up to make even better choices the next time.

If you are seeing me to work on parenting…

I will first try to understand your child’s development and current stage fully. Then, we will talk about what is developmentally appropriate and what is not. When we can pinpoint what we want to work on, I will help you with specific techniques based on my years of training in child development and teaching parenting classes.

Clients seeing me for relationship transitions and parenting often find benefit in Somatic Breathwork, as these life events often bring up unresolved issues from childhood.

It depends. Sometimes clients are just trying to make it session to session. Homework is daunting and may be better suited for later in therapy or not at all. I’ve had many clients graduate without ever having done a formal homework assignment.

Other clients love homework and want to grow on their own, too. In those cases, I assign specific types of journaling or record-keeping. I also give practical experiments to try. Further analysis in between sessions can help us understand how your mind works.

Absolutely! When you meet your treatment goals and we both feel like there’s nothing else to work on, you can graduate.

But you’re welcome to come back if life presents you with new challenges you want help working through. I will say processing your past trauma with breathwork definitely sets you up to handle the unexpected far better than you would have before our work.

We work to get you to the point of resiliency, but coming back to therapy in tough times is sometimes necessary.

I got my doctorate (PsyD) from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University in 2011. A PsyD is a doctorate in clinical psychology as opposed to a doctorate in the philosophy of psychology (PhD). This means my training was very clinically focused.

Before that, I went to a small, all-women’s college (the first all-women’s college!), Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, where I majored in psychology.

My education focused on attachment, psychoanalytic theory, child development, and mood disorders (such as anxiety and depression).

My training has been with adults, adolescents, and children. My pre-doc internships were working with adolescents, children, and mothers. My post-doc internship was working with parents, children, high-conflict families, and adults with traumatic histories coming to therapy for anxiety or depression.

I had two years of training in Somatic Breathwork and taught parenting and co-parenting classes.

Psychologists get more education and training than any other therapist – particularly with what’s happening in the brain.

Plus, you can guarantee that the sort of person with a doctorate has a lot of tenacity!

The most important question is whether the therapist you’re considering has education and up-to-date training on why you’re coming to therapy.

This is true. Our licensing boards strongly encourage us to seek frequent and consistent outside consultation about our work.

But don’t worry: Unnecessary details are changed, and names are not used. No identifying information is exchanged.

I enjoy getting outside perspective on my work, as it enriches me as a clinician and gives you as a client a team behind you!

Actually, there is. Many clients enjoy having the privacy of their own homes for Somatic Breathwork. This allows them to let go with their feelings and not worry about people in other therapy rooms.

Other obvious benefits come from side-stepping all that comes with commuting to an office – like getting ready, driving, burning gas, parking, and waiting in a lobby with others.

No. I am in my home office behind a locked door and a white noise machine for our video sessions. Both the boy and the dog will be in someone else’s care!