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FAQs
Getting Started
Connect with me and schedule a free 15 minute consultation to see if we're a good match. Therapist-client alignment is the secret sauce of effective therapy.
My orientation is feminist, anti-racist, client-centered, and integrative, and is focused on helping each client empower themselves to reclaim their lives.
I work best with clients who are ready to both face the challenges and also honor the blessings of their life experiences and use those to catalyze their envisioned future.
Next Steps
If we feel it's a good fit and are ready to move forward, our first 4-6 weekly sessions (more or less per clinical judgment) will be conducted via Zoom to get the lay of the internal landscape and rule out any mental health issues that might make therapeutic work on the land inappropriate.
Although these sessions take place over Zoom, Ecotherapy is deeply woven into the fabric of my work and is the not only the lens through which I provide therapy but also the vehicle. In a Zoom context, this process involves self-reflection on your attunement to yourself and the land, nature connection homework and processes, and organizing aspects of your life to become in tune with the rhythms of the natural world.
What To Expect
Early phase and middle phase Ecotherapy takes place weekly.
During the initial phase of therapy, expect Zoom session to last one hour. The first couple of sessions will be focused on information gathering about you, your current challenges bringing you to therapy, your goals for our work together, and your history of mental health care.
From there, we will slowly descend into the deeper layers of what's troubling you, and I'll offer you possible pathways we could take to help you get where you'd like to go.
Once we move out onto the landscape, expect sessions to last up to 90 minutes. Locations will be determined by therapist and client and are subject to change as we determine the need or preference. These sessions include developing thresholds, grounding techniques, attunement exercises, and exploration of how your internal process is met by and reflected in the external environment.
I incorporate naturalist education into therapy to acquaint you with the support team known as the plants, animals, birds, rocks, waterways, and happenings of the natural world, so that when we're not in session together, you can use this knowledge to support yourself between sessions.
Dress for sun exposure, temperature changes, plant, dirt, and water engagement, and ease of movement.
End stage therapy will move to a biweekly pace when determined appropriate by therapist and client together.
Accessibility
In-person Ecotherapy can be provided to people of varying levels of ambulation. Many locations within Santa Barbara are suitable for those with limited ambulation, including wheelchairs. We will determine a location based on our mutual comfort with the terrain and level of privacy provided.
Note on Determination of Appropriateness of Outdoor Ecotherapy:
• Mental health issues that require a higher level of care, or that are sociopathic in nature, are not appropriate for outdoor Ecotherapy services.
• Trauma that is in early stages of process will require a greater foundation of therapist-client alliance via Zoom prior to taking the work outdoors AND greater attention paid to the choice of location for an appropriate level of safety and privacy, to be determined mutually by therapist and client.
• Trauma that is rooted in events that took place in an outdoor setting are not appropriate for outdoor Ecotherapy UNLESS the client is desiring to experience gradual exposure therapy in order to overcome the barriers between themselves and nature connection brought on by the traumatic event.
In these cases, the utmost attention will be paid to crafting a therapy process together that provides safety, a place of retreat in the gradual process, and significant time spent developing therapist-client attunement.
If we determine in-person outdoor therapy is not appropriate for any reason, we will continue with Zoom or phone sessions with an emphasis on your personal work in the field of nature connection.
This work will be an essential element of our work together.
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