It starts with the first session. You help us to understand the nature and the history of the problem.

We get a sketch of who you are and get to know you as a person.

We begin to form an alliance and mutually develop a felt sense about what it's like to work together.

We commit to engage this process honestly and authentically.

Within 6-12 sessions we have identified your goals for therapy.

We now begin the process of experimenting with strategies to produce some relief from the problems you hove identified; and we devise strategies to help you more effectively cope with feelings/issues/problems.

If, in the course of dealing with these matters, we begin to encounter the underlying causes of the presenting problem, and we begin the work of exploring these deeper issues together. From here, the course of therapy and the journey of healing evolves into a manner that is organic and defined through colaboration and mutual consensus.

We project out what it is that you would want to have happened when you walk out the door feeling as if the work you have wanted to do has been accomplished. In other words, everything you had hoped could be produced by your coming here has been produced.

Termination - you accomplished your goals and internalized what you have learned.

We prefer to leave it open ended - inasmuch as we don't want to direct what gets covered in a particular session on an ongoing basis. Our reasoning for this is that you way come in here with a question or issue on your heart and our question/statement may take you off where you never intended to go - and what you wanted to process gets neglected.

If you get stuck – and ask for our help – We'll step in.

Usually we'll talk about how the week went relative to the issues you are dealing with.

There may be something we stumbled onto in the previous session that you want to discuss.

There may be a homework assignment that we review.

We may talk about how you we feeling in the moment.

Depending on your priority - we may pray together.

An ongoing to the commitment to the process - that is - one full session once a week is highly recommended.

Often times - the amount of relief produced by a first session can be misleading - it is referred to as the "flight into health" and may lead you to conclude that the problem is solved because you feel better. This is an aspect of a more complex phenomenon which may be experienced as resistance to coming to therapy. This is often a sign that something important and unresolved is nearing the surface.

A session that begins with your not being sure what to talk about can be very productive and meaningful. Trusting the process is an important part of therapy.