Do we click?

To respect your time and resources, I offer and recommend a free, no-commitment, 15-20 minute phone or video meeting where we might get to know each other a little and see if we might be a good fit.

Your stories and experiences are important, and it makes sense to want to gauge a new person before sharing those stories and experiences with them.

To support accessibility and sustainability of services, especially in the time of COVID-19, I offer only phone and video conversations so that we can connect from wherever we might have access to a phone, computer, internet, and some modicum of privacy.

For more information about privacy, security, and video platform capabilities, please see the Phone & Video Considerations page.

Sometimes a little more time to think, revisit, and craft a response can offer a welcome therapeutic space. This may be an alternative or an addition to verbal conversations, and can be a welcome form of record keeping for conversations that can feel ephemeral.

If you might like to see if this could be of use to you, please schedule either an intro call or letter / email.

This is an excerpt from The Economics of Narrative by David Nylund & John Thomas (1994, p. 4-5), which (despite the unfortunate formatting) explores the impact of therapeutic narrative letters:

“Although my intuition told me the letter-writing process was well worth it, I had not documented evidence of its usefulness, particularly in the context of managed care. I conducted a survey to determine the impact on my clients of narrative letters that asked them to indicate if the letters they received in therapy were: (I) Very Helpful, (2) Helpful, (3) Not Helpful, or (4) Harmful. The respondents were also requested to elaborate on their response to this question. There were two additional questions. Clients were asked to identify the "worth" of a narrative letter versus face-to-face interviews (e.g., one letter is equivalent to two interviews). Lastly, clients were invited to estimate the percentage of gains in therapy due to the letters alone (What percentage of the gains you made during counseling are due to the letters sent to you?).

After I had obtained 40 surveys, I tallied up the findings. Thirty-seven participants indicated that the letters were "very helpful" The remaining three considered them"helpful". The average worth of a letter was 3.2 face-to-face interviews, with the highest single rating as I0 and the lowest as .25. As a group, 52.8 percent of the gains made in therapy were due to the letters alone. The average length of therapy was 4.5 sessions.

The clients' comments on the survey forms also lend support to the therapeutic value of letter writing. The following comment by one of the participants is representative of many other responses:

"At first, I was a little awestruck over the fact that someone would take the time to write me. Your letters put the finishing touch on each session. They have given me support and encouragement. If I was feeling very down, and I knew that there were no appointments available, I referred to the letters and had a counseling session between myself and the letters. The letters are stronger than the fear; they have documented growth. In turn, I feel stronger. I really like your questions; they provoked deep thought. Because of your letters, I feel that therapy has been greatly enhanced for me."

Narrative letters appear to break down the distinction between therapy in the office and therapy outside of the office. They provide the message that being in the world is more important than being in the therapy office. When therapeutic activity continues even after the therapy visit, clients are more likely to rely on their own knowledge and less on the expert knowledge of the therapist. This view is in stark contrast to traditional therapy assumptions.”