Faq

What Color is Your Heart Today?

Developing Emotional Awareness

  • How do I know whether my child needs psychotherapy?

    • When emotional states interfere with day-to-day functioning, psychotherapy can help a child, and his or her family, address and resolve feelings and behaviors that are getting in the way. Whether it is an inner or an outer conflict, or the combination of internal and external forces, art-based psychotherapeutic interventions allow children to articulate their challenges and to discover solutions and strategies for dealing with the ups and downs of life.

      In the context of chronic conditions, children can feel at the mercy of forces so much greater than themselves. Restoring a sense of agency wherever possible is key to regaining a sense of purpose and hopefulness about the future.

      Prolonged irritability or sadness, disrupted or excessive sleep, loss or lack of interest, isolation, anger that prevents resolution or communication, and over- or under-eating are sometimes indications that psychotherapeutic intervention is warranted.

  • Do you take insurance?

    • As an out-of-network provider, I will give you statements to submit to your insurance company for reimbursement. I have provided out-of-network services for CIGNA, Aetna, and Anthem, among others.

  • How much do you charge?

    • My regular fee is $200.00 per 45-minute session. If this fee is not right for you, I can provide you with referrals to low-fee clinics or to interns working in my practice.

  • Why art-based psychotherapy?

    • Art has long been recognized as a natural language of childhood. All around the world, children, regardless of their backgrounds, engage in distinctly similar mark-making sequences at comparable stages of development. With limited access to language, especially to the more subtle nuances of words as they relate to feelings, children rely on behavior, play, and art to communicate their inner worlds.

      While art therapy has been around for nearly 70 years in the United States, its effectiveness has received renewed attention due to technological advances in neuroscience. The increased understanding of the brain in response to chronic stress and trauma has revealed the importance of accessing experiences and memory outside of language. The sensory-engaged medium of art has the capacity to tap into circuits that can become overly activated or disorganized as a result of overwhelm and into those that are key for affect regulation. The use of art in therapy provides one more pathway to access, and address, affect dysregulation.

      The inclusion of art furthermore recognizes the way in which most children (and, arguably, adults) best acquire knowledge: through hands-on, experiential learning. When concepts are approached through sensorimotor channels, they are absorbed, retained and integrated more successfully.

  • How long does therapy take?

    • How many sessions an individual child or family need depends on the particular situation. On average, my clients come for 25 sessions.

      Initially, I meet with the parent(s) or guardian(s) to discuss the nature of the challenges as well as the desired outcomes for the therapy.

      When meeting with the child, I try to deepen my sense of the child’s interests, strengths, and struggles. After four sessions with the child, I meet with the parents to share my thoughts on what we are capable of working towards, on how we might approach the goals, and how we can track and measure progress together.

  • My child lives with a chronic physical condition. Will going to therapy make my child feel like they have something emotionally wrong with them as well?

    • More and more healthcare models are recognizing the mind-body connection and the importance of emotional regulation as a vital part of overall wellbeing. Because managing chronic conditions creates added and continual stress as well as greater dependency on others, self-awareness and improved interpersonal functioning can make life smoother.

      Helping a child better understand his or her strengths, and how to more effectively draw on them can assist the child, and family members, in adjusting to life with illness.

      The point of departure for the work at Art Practice is not “What is wrong?” but rather “How can we consolidate or create strengths to find solutions, facilitate better teamwork and more adaptive coping strategies?”

The Board of Behavioral Sciences receives and responds to complaints regarding services provided within the scope of practice of (marriage and family therapists, licensed educational psychologists, clinical social workers, or professional clinical counselors).
You may contact the board online at www.bbs.ca.gov, or by calling (916) 574-7830.