FAQs

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) are relationship specialists who treat persons involved in interpersonal relationships. They are trained to assess, diagnose and treat individuals, couples, families and groups to achieve more adequate, satisfying and productive marriage, family and social adjustment. The practice also includes premarital counseling, child counseling, divorce or separation counseling and other relationship counseling.

Marriage and Family Therapists are psychotherapists and healing arts practitioners licensed by the State of California. Requirements for licensure include a related doctoral or two-year master’s degree, passage of two comprehensive written examinations and at least 3,000 hours of supervised experience (California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists CAMFT).

Read the About Me pages on this site and watch my introductory video on the home page. If you feel like we are a good match, I offer a FREE 20-minute introductory online or phone session to talk further about your needs.

Refer to the My Fees page for the answer to this question.

I do not provide superbills, but I do have a billing service that may be able to file claims with your Out-of-Network Insurance if applicable. However, my billing service will only bill back three months from the time you inform me to begin the billing process. Please contact me for any questions regarding insurance.

I currently see clients both online and in-person in my Corte Madera office. See the Office Locations page for locations and directions. My Online Counseling services are provided both by phone and video conference.

In the first session we will decide if a brief therapy course of 6 to 8 sessions is appropriate or if we may need several months. I have some clients who enjoy seeing me for years. When therapy ends I have an open door policy, letting you know you can come back if needed to begin again.

I recommend weekly sessions for most clients to keep continuity and achieve your goals sooner. If your situation does not allow you to to come weekly, we can often find a workable solution which meets your needs.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Therapy aims at modifying our dysfunctional assumptions and beliefs that maintain our maladaptive behaviors and emotions, through understanding the connection between our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

Forgiveness Therapy: I base my therapy on the work of Richard Fitzgibbons, MD who trained with Aaron T Beck in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and his colleague Robert D. Enright, PhD. I incorporate other research on forgiveness as well. Please see the section explaining this in more detail.

Psychodynamic Therapy: We exam our childhood and past experiences in more detail to understand how the subconscious is affecting our current thinking and behavior. Through the client/therapist relationship we find a new and freer way to perceive and live life.

Solution Focused Therapy: We focus on the here and now in therapy and work on finding solutions rather than putting emphasis on the problem. You rediscover your strengths and use them to find solutions.

Family Systems Therapy: The Focus is on the family as a system. The individual problems are a result of the members influencing each other. Therapy is aimed at alleviating current symptoms through altering a family’s transactions and organization. This can be done with an individual, couple or family.

I explain to you in more detail what I do and what type of therapy may work for you during our introductory session. We discuss together what your needs are and decide on the length and goals for therapy together. For some we choose a specific therapy, but for many of my clients I use what’s called eclectic therapy and we incorporate more than one psychological theory to tailor make the therapy to fit the person.

I only use email or text messaging for scheduling and non-confidential communications. I do not exchange confidential information via email or text messaging. However, I do offer therapy by phone and online (video conferencing) – see my Online Counseling page for more information.