Expectations for Counseling
What Actually Happens in Counseling?
What Does Counseling Look Like?
Counseling usually begins by meeting each week to get started, then after a number of initial sessions to either continue weekly, biweekly, intermittently or finish and move on, depending on your purposes and needs for counseling, and relative degree of difficulty establishing changes sought through counseling. Your own efforts in learning and growing through applying changes in your habits of thought, perception, interpretation and behavior are necessary for counseling to work for you. Different people, and different problems, take different measures of time for satisfactory change.
Counseling sessions are meetings of engaged one-on-one focused conversation, assessment, evaluation, investigation, coaching and learning through psychoeducation. mere’s the jargon: my approach integrates conventional models of psychological counseling principles based upon traditional psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, control-mastery and nature-based ecopsychology theoretical orientations. What does this mean, exactly?
This means we will be talking and learning about a lot of different things about your mind and personality and how they both work. We will go through the basic structure of the mind and personality from the perspective of classical, foundational psychology, learning about the personality, Id, Ego and Superego, the powerful primary and secondary psychological defensive mechanisms, learning to recognize and adaptively alter cognitive distortions, habits of thought and perception, and learning to understand how your central nervous system functions in surprisingly natural restorative ways. This means we will be investigating and identifying the nature of your mind, memories, beliefs and behaviors.
Counseling Indoors / Counseling Outdoors
Combining counseling with nature and movement outdoors can help people feel more open, find new perspectives and understanding, while connected with the outside world, and generate a sense of belonging to something true and great. Outdoor counseling falls under the umbrella of ecotherapy, a broad term that includes activities as varied as equine therapy and outings like wilderness and adventure therapy. During the pandemic, while many therapists moved online, others held sessions outside, seeking a safer way to meet in person.
We will meet for ‘in-person’ counseling sessions at my comfortable office in Half Moon Bay, and when deemed appropriate, for ‘in-nature’ counseling sessions outdoors near Half Moon Bay, such as Cowell-Purisima Coastal Trail, Half Moon Bay Coastal Trail and Fitzgerald Marine Reserve County Park.
You may have other counseling goals relative to your situation, these are important to me as well. We discuss your goals in our initial phone call and throughout sessions, working them into ongoing treatment.
Contact me if you have specific questions as it relates to treatment and what you can expect from the process.
Philosophy of Counseling
As each and every person is individual and unique. My approach as a mental health professional is conventional, conversational, warm and realistic, politically nonpartisan with clinical neutrality. My approach is intended to cultivate a working relationship with you. This approach is therapeutically and realistically collaborative. It begins with the mindset that you already hold expertise on knowing yourself, you are stronger than you may think, and you do understand what is best for yourself.
My role is to serve the enhancement of your self-knowledge, with useful psychological perspectives and interpretations, to teach relevant self-care and self-management practices, to facilitate positive habit change, and to provide you with psychological education from my professional experience and knowledge base.
Each and every one of us is a miracle, an amazing human being. Each person has the life force within, the innate propensity towards wholeness, growth and healing. Counseling can aid these inner forces through better understanding and integrating life’s obstacles, and choosing which actions you will apply to digest, pass through or to clear away obstacles from your path.
Getting Started: Next Steps
- Contact Kelly and schedule a free 15-minute phone call to discuss treatment and goals
- Schedule the first session
