To become a client, you must:
Be a Colorado Resident
Be available 9am-4pm
Know I'm an out of network provider
Know my fees
Understand attendance policy below
Not have medicaid
Attendance Policy
In order to best support you, I request regularly scheduled appointments until treatment goals have been met.
For example, you might decide that meeting every Tuesday at 10am is a time you can consistently block off for therapy.
Once you begin to feel more stable, you can move to bi-weekly, or monthly appointments.
This policy is not meant to be rigid, but rather reflects evidence-based practices of what research has shown leads to the best client outcomes.
If your schedule fluctuates and you are unable to commit to a weekly session, I request that you commit to booking 4 weeks at a time.
Why I have an attendance policy
Many clients who schedule sessions sporadically fall into an unhelpful cycle where they don’t attend sessions often enough to do the deep therapeutic work required for real change. With infrequent sessions, we often don’t have time for much other than catching up and venting, as demonstrated in this cycle:
Why I Request Recurring Sessions:
LOGISTICS
Recurring sessions take the weekly burden of scheduling off you while allowing me to better understand my capacity and know when I need to institute a waitlist for prospective clients.
MOMENTUM
Clients who have a recurring sessions meet their goals sooner and see more growth overall. It takes time to get to know you, your history, and where you’re struggling. It is easier to develop a more nuanced understanding of your issues if the sessions are regular.
LESS CATCH UP, MORE DEEP DIVE
A longer gap between sessions means there’s more time for stuff to happen in your daily life, making therapy sessions more about catching up with recent events rather than focusing in depth on working on a particular issue.
BUILD TRUST
The frequency and reliability of week-in, week-out therapy sessions contributes to a feeling of safety and trust that allows us to work on a deeper, more effective level. This is often the level at which we need to work in order to allow healing, growth, and restoration to happen.
INSIGHT & ACCOUNTABILITY
Recurring sessions provide surprising opportunities for insight and accountability in both directions. For example, if you find yourself cancelling frequently, I can ask you why. It can create an opportunity for you to tell me that you’re not feeling like my approach is working for you (therefore holding me accountable) or you may realize that your anxiety about therapy is causing you to cancel (therefore holding you accountable and giving us a chance to address your anxiety).
SELF CARE
Weekly sessions allow you to mentally prepare for each session and to have enough time to process between sessions. Seeing me at the same time each week can allow you to develop soothing rituals before and after therapy sessions (i.e. lighting a candle, making tea, making a list of things you want to talk about in session, etc).
SAFETY NET
Knowing that before too long you’ll have a session in which you can offload and discuss things can help you manage your feelings better in day-to-day life.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
Longer gaps between sessions can mean forgetting important themes and insights, causing us to loose momentum.
AVOID RELAPSE
Longer gaps between sessions make it easier to fall back into familiar unwanted habits of thinking, feeling and behavior.
Ultimately, committing to recurring sessions is a way for you to honor yourself and your healing process.
FAQs:
What if I want to work with you but I can’t do a recurring day/time due to my work schedule?
We will decide on the frequency (weekly or bi-weekly) that works best for you. I’ll encourage you to schedule out as far as your schedule allows. When you no longer have a next session scheduled, we will use the last 5 minutes of your session to schedule your next sessions.
I might need weekly therapy now, but I don’t think I always will. How do we handle that?
It’s my job to basically put myself out of a job–i.e. to get you to the point where you don’t feel the need for therapy. Once your symptoms have improved, or you feel equipped with the right mental health tools that you came to me for, most clients enter a “maintenance” phase, where they see me once or twice a month. At some point, many folks choose to “terminate” therapy (with the understanding that I always have an open door for you if they want to return for any reason in the future).
If I have a recurring appointment set up, can I still cancel during busy seasons of life where I need less commitments?
Yes, as long as you give 48 hours notice. Ideally we’d talk about you taking a break beforehand and determine when you’re returning to therapy before you take a break.
What if I need to cancel or reschedule my recurring time slot one week due to an unexpected conflict?
If you have a recurring session set up, you can still cancel or reschedule to a different time that works better for you for that particular week as long as you provide 48-hour’s notice per my 48-hour cancellation policy.
I’d like to schedule a weekly or bi-weekly recurring therapy session. How do I do that?
Let me know the days/times that would work for you, and I will let you know what slots I have available. I will then schedule the recurring sessions on my end for you (it’s easy for me to make an appointment recurring on my end, but on your end in the client portal you have to click through each week).
What if I need to take a break from therapy and I don’t know if or when I’ll return to therapy?
The advantage of a recurring session is that it encourages healthy, direct, and clear communication between the two of us. You would just let me know your circumstances and we will figure it out. Keep in mind I always want what is best for you and I completely understand that clients sometimes need a break from therapy.
Research on Recurring Sessions:
Lower versus higher frequency of sessions in starting outpatient mental health care
An adequate frequency of treatment is most often a prerequisite for a favorable outcome. In all diagnostic groups, both improvement and recovery were associated with a higher frequency of sessions during the first three months of treatment. A low frequency of initial treatment sessions might lead to a less favorable outcome and a more chronic course of the mental disorder. This association seems not to be limited to a specific diagnostic group, but was found in a large group of patients with common mental disorders (depression and anxiety disorders) and patients with a personality disorder. View study here.
Randomized Trial of Weekly, Twice-Monthly, and Monthly Interpersonal Psychotherapy as Maintenance Treatment for Women With Recurrent Depression
These results suggest that maintenance therapy, even at a frequency of only one visit per month, is a good method of preventing a recurrence of depression. The literature on maintenance treatment increasingly indicates that if a patient gets well (not merely better, but well) on any given treatment, the prudent maintenance strategy is to continue that treatment. View study here.
Scheduled Healing: The Relationship Between Session Frequency and Psychotherapy Outcome in a Naturalistic Setting
Clients scheduled once a week tend to recover at higher rates, and deteriorate less, than those scheduled once every two weeks. Session frequency appears to affect both the amount of recovery and the speed of recovery in psychological treatment. View study here.
Therapeutic Alliance and Outcome of Psychotherapy: Historical Excursus, Measurements, and Prospects for Research
The quality of the alliance between therapist and client was more predictive of positive outcome than the type of intervention. View study here.