FAQ

We are next door to St. Honoré, a French bakery.

The Baxter Building has a parking lot. During your session, park in any spot labeled “Baxter Visitor.”

I’m an in-network provider with Pacific Source Insurance and can bill them directly for services. I’m happy to contact them before our first full session to clarify your benefits. Though I will make every effort to ensure you receive your benefits, you are ultimately responsible for all charges.

If you are not insured with Pacific Source, I can provide you with what is called a superbill, a receipt for services that you can submit to your insurance for reimbursement. However, please note that as an out-of-network provider, there is no guarantee if or how much your insurance will reimburse.

Also, by providing you with a superbill, I will be required to include your mental health diagnosis, which will be part of your permanent medical record.

There are many disadvantages to working directly with insurance, including a lack of privacy and confidentiality, dictation of the duration, frequency and type of services provided, denial of reimbursement for sessions mid-treatment, and more.

Moving away from working with insurance companies allows me to give you more time and attention, working with you in a way that is going to serve your needs best – not those of an insurance company.

A complimentary 20-minute phone consultation allows me to ask what brings you to therapy and what it is that you hope to work on. You’ll have time to ask me questions as well.

By the end of our call, you’ll be able to decide if it seems like therapy is right for you and if we are a good fit for working together. From there, we can discuss scheduling and help you figure out the “next steps.”

Call me at (503) 915-4906 and let me know that you’re interested in setting up a 20-minute phone consultation. You can expect to receive a call back within 24 hours. Please note that on weekends or holidays, I will respond the next business day.

I have a firm cancellation policy. For cancellations, I require a 24-hour notice prior to the scheduled appointment time. This allows me to offer that spot to a client on my waitlist.

For sessions that are canceled within 24 hours of the scheduled appointment time, you will be charged the full price of the scheduled visit.

The first few sessions allow us time to get to know each other and create a sort of road map for our work together. I will ask you about what brings you to therapy, what symptoms you’re having and for how long, and what you feel like is going well and not so well in your life.

As we continue our work together, you’ll notice our sessions becoming more like a conversation. At the start of each session, I’ll invite you to share what’s on your mind, what has happened in your life over the last week, what may be bothering you, and if there are any goals you’d like to discuss.

Some sessions may be more focused on talking about how you can get more immediate relief from your current symptoms. Other sessions will be more focused on helping you gain insight into how your past experiences may be influencing your current symptoms.

In most sessions, we will work to identify one goal you can work toward in the week ahead that will help you gain relief from your symptoms. Examples can include engaging in one activity that week that is going to bring you more joy or increase structure, like getting a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee house or visiting the Portland Japanese Garden.

Other examples might include reaching out to a supportive family member or friend to increase connection or practice one of the skills we have discussed in session. It is my belief that setting small, realistic, achievable goals throughout treatment enables clients to experience the most relief from their symptoms. This is what I ultimately want for you!

Each person and their situation are unique, so a timeframe for how long someone may need to be in therapy and when they will feel better will vary.

Most people begin to experience relief from symptoms one to two months after starting therapy, some after the first session. It’s important to note that therapy is a journey that will have ups and downs.

Ultimately, you will feel relief, but this does not mean you won’t have very challenging, lonely, or even painful days throughout this process.

Even when individuals feel their presenting problems have been addressed, many people find that therapy, either continuously or off and on throughout their life, can be helpful. Some even see it as a lifelong aspect of self-care, which is like taking care of one’s physical health through diet and exercise.

Therapy has both benefits and risks. It often involves discussing the more unpleasant aspects of your life. Risks include experiencing more uncomfortable feelings, such as sadness, guilt, frustration, loneliness, or helplessness. Confronting your anxieties and fears is usually uncomfortable. Therefore, I will ensure we are closely monitoring your tolerance of this discomfort.

Therapy has been shown to have benefits for individuals who undertake it. It often leads to a significant reduction in feelings of distress, increased satisfaction in relationships, greater personal awareness and insight, and increased skills for managing stress, as well as resolutions to specific problems.

There is no guarantee of what will happen in therapy, though many of my clients report that therapy with me has substantially improved their quality of life.

I use techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), both of which focus more on finding practical solutions that can offer you more immediate relief from your symptoms in the present day. (Immediate relief – doesn’t that sound wonderful?! It is wonderful, and these approaches can work for you, too!)

I also use psychodynamic psychotherapy, an approach that can help you gain insight into your earlier life experiences and how those may be affecting your current symptoms. This approach is more focused on the root of the problem and is known as a “bottom-up” approach.

Additionally, I specialize in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. EMDR therapy is an empirically proven, workable eight-step method that helps individuals heal from symptoms and distress often times the result of earlier life experiences. For the last 30 years, EMDR has helped thousands of people who were struggling with symptoms that often were caused by trauma. In a short period of time, EMDR can help transform old wounds, so we experience them much differently than before.

I graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, with a Bachelor’s in Social Work and a Minor in Addiction Treatment in 2011 and received a Master’s in Social Work in 2013. During my graduate program, I assisted with implementing DBT skills training for children placed in an emergency shelter foster care. I became licensed as a Clinical Social Worker in the State of Oregon (License # 8259) in 2019.

As a social worker, I have over a decade of experience working with children, adolescents, and adults in many different settings, including working with families and children involved in the child welfare system and individuals who were incarcerated and struggling with substance use.

I have worked most often in the field of mental health—inpatient, residential, and outpatient programs. This is the area of social work about which I am most passionate. I truly enjoy working with and helping individuals with depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship struggles, and life stressors.

A therapist’s education is never complete. I continue to attend professional trainings and workshops annually to increase my skills to serve my clients better.

Yes!

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Because her therapist told her to try things that scare her!

Q: Why did Waldo go to therapy?
A: To find himself!

Q: What did the therapist say in response to a client who asked her to validate her parking?
A: “Oh, my gosh! Girl, you did such a great job! That parking job looks amazing! Well done!”