FAQ

What can I expect during my first session?

During a first session, we will spend more intentional time gathering information about your history, current challenges, and other important information about your life. I will ask more questions that I do in typical sessions to get a deeper sense of who you are. You are also welcome to ask me any questions about my training, style of providing therapy, or other questions that feel important to ask. I want to make sure that we are a good fit for one another!

What can I expect from going to therapy?

Ideally, attending a round of therapy will allow you to work toward personal goals, find increased insight and understanding into who you are and ways of managing challenging things, and find growth and healing. Accessing a warm and supportive relationship allows you to develop trust, feel vulnerable, and gain perspective from a more objective person- this hopefully allows you to find the support you need to move toward your goals. Sometimes attending therapy makes things feel worse before they feel better- this is very normal and expected. You can think of therapy, depending on your goals, as emotional “surgery”- uncovering and digging into wounds does not necessarily feel easy or good at first, but the intention is to eventually feel better!

How long does therapy take?

It can depend on your goals and resources! Great change can occur within a short amount of time (1-6 sessions) depending on a person’s readiness and access to needed supports. Therapy can also provide benefit over a longer period of time. We will collaborate around the length of our work together, depending on your goals and needs, and my skillset and feedback. Many of my clients are working on issues best-suited for longer term therapy (six or more months). In longer term therapy, I will often recommend taking a break or pause at certain points to allow time for integration before returning to therapy (whether that is with me or someone else).

Will I have homework?

The majority of work associated with therapy happens outside of the therapy room. I may suggest trying things, and it is up to you whether you engage with these invitations or other ideas that help move you toward your goals.

What is sex therapy about?

Sex therapy is about working with the mind, heart, and body to address issues related to sex, sexuality, gender, and relationships. You can access sex therapy as an individual or as part of a couple/moresome. I can offer information regarding issues you are facing and managing, suggest practical exercises that you can practice in session and at home, and help process deeper issues arising for you. In sex therapy, we can work on issues related to: function, libido, arousal and desire, orgasm, pain, accessing pleasure, compulsive or out of control behaviors, communication, sexual orientation (including asexuality), gender identity and expression, gender affirming transition needs and care, nonmonogamous and polyamorous relationship navigation, and kink and fetish exploration.

Sex therapy is not the same as somatic sex education, sex surrogacy, or sex work (although all of these modalities can work in symbiotic and complementary ways). We maintain the same boundaries as in general mental health therapy. I will never touch you in a sexual or erotic way, and we will not have a sexual or erotic relationship. It is expected that we will talk about sexual and/or erotic things, and it is normal for this to feel charged, edgy, arousing, uncomfortable, or challenging. The beautiful thing about sex therapy, and therapy in general, is that we have the opportunity to make the uncomfortable more comfortable and the taboo more normalized.

You can read more about the American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists here.

What is Body Trust® work about?

Body Trust work is a radical and counter-cultural approach to relating to the body. It is not a “plan” for “fixing” the body. No diets, no workout plans, no shoulds. It is a weight-inclusive approach to healing our relationships to eating, movement, pleasure, and our ever-changing bodies.

Body Trust means so many things to me: a reconnection with the body as a priority; rebuilding a trusting relationship with the body; divesting from external markers of “health,” “wellness,” and “goodness”; reconnecting to internal signals to direct self understanding and behavior; dismantling internalized and learned oppression so that body liberation is for every body; radical self love; reconnecting to mindfulness, gratitude, and pleasure and embodying pleasure activism; healing the Western mind/body split; relaxing anxiety about illness, disability, difference, and death; it is spiritual; it is social justice; it is the core self and part of each of us.

In the words of Dana Sturtevant from The Center for Body Trust:

“Body Trust is a Birthright. We are not born into this world fretting about the size of our bellies, butts, and things. Body shame is learned, so it can be unlearned. In fact, there’s a lot more to unlearn than there is to learn on the path to Body Trust.

Body Trust is a radically different way of relating to, occupying, and caring for your body in a culture that doesn’t trust bodies. It is completely counter to conventional “wisdom” about food, bodies, weight, and health.

Body Trust is developing an analysis of what’s come between you and being at home in your body.

Body Trust is a homecoming. It can help you get out of your head and back into your body.

Body Trust requires us to divest from diet culture, toxic fitness culture (a term coined by Ilya Parker), and social constructs of health and beauty.

Ultimately, Body Trust is a reclamation of self, body, voice, pleasure, food, movement and more.”

You can learn more about Body Trust here.