Do you accept insurance?

Yes, I do take several California based insurances including Cigna, Aetna, United Health Care (Optum), Blue Shield of California, Magellan, Oxford (Optum), Carelon Behavioral Health, and Quest Behavioral Health. Please note, to qualify for insurance therapy you must qualify for diagnosis and the work is to extinguish symptoms of the diagnosis. Insurance is not for personal growth therapy. Regular assessments are required to measure severity of diagnosis and progress in the work.

Do you accept insurance for couples?

Rarely. To qualify for couples counseling with insurance one person in the couple must have a qualified mental health diagnosis and the focus of the counseling is to extinguish symptoms of the diagnosis. Insurance work for couples is not for Gottman work, a focus on communication, or helping reconnect. I do provide a super bill for couples to provide to your insurance for reimbursement.

How long does it take for therapy to work?

It depends on what you mean by work, it depends on what your goals are, most of all it depends on what we are working on. Trauma work is often long-term (1-3 years) and can trigger painful memories, stir up nightmares, basically make it seem like therapy isn’t working. This is not true, it often is a sign of progress and these are feelings to be processed.

What is trauma? How does it show up in the present?

Everyone is aware of the big traumatic events however the definition of trauma I use is too much too soon (think of the big traumatic events we are all aware of), too much to long (an individual event is not traumatic yet if it happens daily for a couple of years it is traumatic, think emotional abuse or invalidation) and third not enough for too long (think neglect). Trauma is not just what happened, it is how our system adapted to it. It shows up in the present as anxiety, emotional reactivity, people pleasing, perfectionism, and even substance abuse. Trauma can store memories in our bodies in the form of constant pain or occasional shivering out of nowhere.