Therapy

  • Who might be a good fit?
    • People who have experiences of intergenerational trauma and/or CPTSD.
    • LGBTQ people.
    • Psych survivors and other people who have been harmed by previous interactions with the mental health system; mad people.
    • Nonmonogamous people and other people who love differently from the norm.
    • People who have experiences of authoritarian religious environments or cults.
    • People who are involved in progressive/leftist political organizing work.
    • Parents who are parenting or are desiring to parent from an anti-oppressive framework.
    • People seeking to navigate relationships and/or conflict in a restorative way.
  • Who:
    • Are over 18 and choosing to come to therapy of their own accord.
    • And/or are in intimate relationships, be they romantic, platonic, co-parenting, kink, business, or something else and seeking to navigate their intimate relationships.
    • And/or are in families (inclusive of young people under 18) in which everyone involved is choosing to come to therapy and open to being a part of the process.
    • I do not work with individual people under 18 at this time – I might be able to make an exception if you are under 18 and exceptionally independent. Contact me to discuss.
  • What type of therapy do you practice?
    • My therapy is grounded in a trauma informed, narrative/storytelling based approach that incorporates attachment and parts, and centers systems of oppression as being trauma creating systems.
    • I seek to establish shared goals via a consent driven process in which you feel supported in navigating the challenges of life and processing the things that have happened to you.
    • An important element of my practice is in assisting you in developing and nurturing a loving community around you.
  • How does it all work?
    • First, we would have a 15-30 minute consultation, over phone or video, at no cost. The purpose of this consultation is for us to learn if we might be a good fit for each other.
    • Second, if you decide you would like to pursue therapy with me, would be an intake session. Intakes are longer than subsequent sessions so that we have more time to get to know each other. For the intake, I have a questionnaire for you to fill out prior to the session for us to go over together. This questionnaire is meant to aid you in sharing important information about your life and what brings you to therapy, and to help guide me in learning more about you.
    • Third, we’ll discuss an agreement for what you are in therapy to do and how I might support you. We might be meeting weekly or every other week to start, but at some point down the line we might decide to meet more or less frequently as needed.
    • We’ll revisit and revise that agreement every few months or as needed to make sure it is up to date. If you want to see what this agreement might look like, check out Intention Setting under the Forms tab.
  • No Surprises Act.
    • The No Surprises Act ensures your right to receive information about your bill prior to being provided services from a medical provider. My fees are “out of pocket” (meaning not generally covered by insurance) and according to your specific financial situation. This means we will decide upon a fee when we begin working together and will be having ongoing transparent conversations about your fee. For further information about your rights you can consult the CMS website, and for my specific polices you can consult the Statement of Agreed Upon Fee For Services Rendered under the Forms tab.
  • COVID 19 safety policies.
    • I am operating remotely for the time being.
  • Where are you located?
    • I operate out of my home in Philadelphia. I am working toward licensure in the state of PA and am able to see people remotely who reside in the state of PA.
  • What is your privacy policy?
    • Some anonymized information about you is collected to ensure that you are not a robot, and also to determine what site linked you to this site. Once we are working together, the information I gather about you is kept safe via the HIPAA compliant My Clients Plus software. You can find more details about my privacy policies under the “Forms” tab.
  • What is your communications policy?
    • Most of our communications will take place through the MCP patient portal which is linked on the home page as MCP is a more secure platform than phone or email. Alternatively, you can contact me for scheduling purposes via text or call at 215-515-8058 or email [email protected]. I will respond to you within two days during normal business hours, which generally are 10am – 6pm not including weekends or holidays. I am not able to be on call in case of emergencies. Instead we will be discussing people in your life you can reach out to in case of an emergency, as well as local hotlines or service providers that may also be a good fit.
  • What is your social media policy?
    • If I find your private social media profile, I will be blocking it immediately and informing you about this during our next session. I would ask that you do the same for me. This is to maintain appropriate boundaries in our relationship. In the process of one of us finding the other on social media, we may discover new information about each other. If this happens, my expectation is that the discoverer will share what they saw so we can both talk about it.
  • Hey, I noticed you’ve got a YouTube video linked on your homepage. What’s up with that?
    • How observant of you! Yes, the video you noticed on my homepage provides an overview of what it would be like for me to be your therapist, discussing much of the information you’ll find here. It may be a little out of date – if there are any inconsistencies, the policies on the informed consent and on this FAQ will take precedence.
    • I’ll be making additional videos discussing the connection between mental health and radical politics.
    • If you’re a client of mine you will of course have the option of watching my videos – I’m making them as a resource for clients but also for people more generally. If you’re not a client, I hope you can still get something out of these videos!
    • In other words, if you’re my client, the YouTube channel is an exception to my social media policy because it is a resource. I will not be putting information on there that I don’t want you to see.
    • If you’d like to discuss something from one of my videos and you’re a client, I’d ask that you bring that up in our next session. If you’re not a client, please contact me using the alternate forms of communication I’ve listed on YouTube. You can find a link to the page here.
  • Self Disclosure.
    • Self disclosure refers to the process whereby a therapist shares information about themselves with you in order to relate with you. For me, this is an important part of the therapeutic process.
    • My process for determining when I self disclose is as follows: when it’s relevant to something we are discussing, if it’s something that could possibly help you in your process and not me in my process, after asking for your permission to share about myself, and/or if it’s something that you’re asking about.
    • After I share about myself I’ll also usually check in about how you’re receiving that information and how it relates to your process.
  • Drugs and Alcohol.
    • I will trust your judgment in determining if/when/how to reduce or discontinue your drug and/or alcohol use.
    • If you show up to a session intoxicated, we will have a discussion about if it makes sense to continue our session, starting with a discussion about your drug and/or alcohol usage, and the role it plays in your life. Alternatively, it might make more sense to reschedule if you are too intoxicated for us to continue.
  • Suicide and other crises.
    • It is normal for people who have experienced trauma to have periods of crisis or suicidality. My approach embraces openly talking about these feelings as early as possible so we can address them together and making a plan for how and where you can be supported. I believe that calling police for “wellness” checks and going to a psychiatric hospital can often be harmful rather than supportive. My hope for our time together would be for us to identify support and plan in case of emergencies to avoid police and hospitals if at all possible.
  • I Will Mess Up
    • While I am a therapist with specific training, I’m also just a person trying to figure things out same as you. I will say something that rubs you the wrong way, or not be emotionally present all the time. In our process it is normal for you to occasionally be upset with me. What happens next is extremely important – we can collaborate to work through what happened together, or you can decide that it’s in your best interest to end our sessions. What I will ask is that, if something comes up, we can give repair a try.
  • Something went wrong. How can I hold you accountable?
    • If you are comfortable bringing your concern to me, I would appreciate you doing that first. I am imperfect and likely to make mistakes. When you share your dissatisfaction with me, it helps me to learn about how best to work with you and it gives us the opportunity to repair our relationship. It can also be helpful to practice navigating conflict and repair in therapy so you can then use that skill outside of therapy.
    • If we have talked and you are still dissatisfied or you don’t feel safe bringing your concerns to me, I would invite you to contact my supervisor Brandy DeFiglio, LMFT. You can reach her at [email protected].
    • If your concerns are still not resolved, and/or you would like to submit a complaint with my licensing board, you can request a complaints package by emailing [email protected]. You may need to know my NPI number (I am pre-licensed so don’t have a license number yet) which is 1104583210 or my supervisor’s license number which is 000836.