+ Where are you?

I am physically located in the NYC metro area, in Jersey City, New Jersey. Clients see me there… but only via a secure videoconferencing telehealth platform. That is, my psychology practice is conducted entirely online! I don’t see clients in-person in a physical office.

+ Why do you only offer therapy online?

I did have a typical in-person therapy practice, in Cincinnati, Ohio. I initially added telehealth when I moved to New York and needed to be able to continue working with my awesome clients from Cincinnati.

But, my clients and I both quickly discovered that the work was just as powerful as it had been in the office… and we now had the added bonuses of convenience, flexibility, and comfort. If you’re curious to learn more, check out the Why Telehealth page.

+ When are you available?

I am in the office Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and see clients between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00.

I recognize that my hours may coincide with your work hours. However, my clients and I have found that, because they are able to log on remotely, they have been able to schedule a session during their lunch hour, or on a day when they’re working from home. Teletherapy has proven immensely beneficial to many of my clients, allowing them to prioritize their self-care and fit therapy into their schedule in a way a session that requires a commute does not.

+ How long are sessions?

Our first session is two hours. Subsequent sessions are the typical 45- to 50-minute therapy hour.

+ I’m not tech savvy — how do I connect to you for an online session?

It’s really easy (I promise). You’ll get an e-mail 10 minutes before our session starts. If you’re on a computer, you click the link and the session opens in a new browser window. Bam! If you’d like to use your mobile device, you’ll need to download an app — Telehealth by Simple Practice — from your app store, and then when you click the link, the session will open in the app. Easy!

I’ll also send you a User Guide before our session to walk you through the setup. (You’ll want to check your video and audio settings before our session.)

The overwhelmingly majority of my clients tell me they were surprised as how easy it is to setup and use. And I’m, of course, happy to answer any questions and support you in figuring it out.

+ What do I need for a great online session?

A strong internet connection, a computer or a mobile device, privacy, and time.

+ I’d love to work with you! How do I schedule a session?

Shoot me an e-mail, or fill out the contact form to schedule an initial consultation. Plan for that call to last about 20 to 30 minutes. You’ll have an opportunity to tell me a bit about your situation, and I can then talk with you about my approach to treatment, so we can ensure a good fit. We’ll then also talk logistics, including scheduling, availability, and payment (although hopefully many of your questions can been answered on this page).

+ If you’re an online therapist, you can see people everywhere, right?

Although I have the technology to do that, I don’t have the licenses. Online therapists must have the same education and other credentials, including licensing, as in-person therapists in order to provide therapy online.

As a psychologist, I must be licensed in the state I am in, as well as the state my client is in. Because I’m licensed in the states of New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Kentucky, I can see you if you live — or are physically located — in one of these four states at the time of our session.

+ What ages do you treat?

I work with clients ages 25 to 65. I do not treat adolescents or children.

+ Who do you treat? Men, women, families, couples?

I offer individual therapy and therefore do not provide family or couples therapy. I am more than happy to work with both men and women, as well as those identifying as non-binary or gender non-conforming.

+ Are you LGBTQ+ affirming? And, do you work with clients from a different background from you?

Unequivocally, and in the most welcoming way, YES! Come as you are, and rest assured you’ll find a safe place to explore and grow.

I relish the opportunity to spend time with people different from myself in my personal and professional lives. I tend to operate in a direct manner generally, and find this approach translates well into working with diverse populations as well. I am willing to acknowledge what I don’t know, and will approach conversations with others who come from a different background than mine with openness, respect, and curiosity.

Although I have much to offer in the room in the realm of psychotherapy, I find that, without fail, my clients have much to teach me as well, about themselves (of course), but also about myself and the world. And, I am so grateful for this extra perk of the job.

+ How much do you charge?

$350 for the first two-hour session, $250 for subsequent 45- to 50-minute sessions.

+ Shouldn’t online therapy be cheaper? Why does it cost the same as in-person therapy?

My clients are paying for my knowledge, training, and expertise, as well as the guidance and support to make powerful changes in their lives. The work I do is the same if it is in-person or online, and therefore the cost is also the same.

+ What methods of payment do you take?

I require all of my clients to place a credit card on file for means of payment. The card will be charged after each session, and in the instance of any late cancellation or no-show fees.

Many clients will also use their Health Savings Account (HSA) card for payment. I’m happy to place this card on file, along with another major credit card, as at times an HSA account may not have sufficient funds.

+ Do you take insurance?

No, I do not accept insurance. I have a self-pay arrangement with my clients.

+ Why don’t you take insurance?

Receiving therapy services without using insurance benefits affords you greater control of the privacy of your most personal information. For example, insurance companies require clinicians to offer a mental health-related diagnosis on claims for service. On the contrary, when you self-pay for treatment, I am not required to offer such a diagnosis. As many of the individuals I see are not mentally ill, but are instead struggling with life stressors or simply trying to create positive change in their lives, a formal diagnosis is often unwarranted. Further, a diagnosis then does not enter an insurance database where it could potentially become discoverable and render you ineligible, for example, for future disability or life insurance. In addition to diagnoses, at times, insurance companies require a great deal of additional personal information to justify the continued need for treatment, information I would be obligated to provide.

Further, because I do not accept insurance, I am better able to provide higher quality, and more personalized, treatment. The treatment we collaboratively choose for you is not subject to review — or directed by — your insurance company. And, I am also able to focus my energy on treating my clients rather than combatting insurance companies for payment.

+ What’s your cancellation policy?

A $125 fee will be charged for appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice.

+ How should I prepare for my first session with you?

I’ll forward documents for you to review, complete, and sign. Otherwise, simply look forward to the opportunity to share what’s on your mind, knowing that you are prioritizing yourself, and taking your wellbeing into your own hands.

Our first session will be two hours, while regular subsequent sessions are the typical therapy hour (45–50 minutes). The first session is longer because I prefer to have an uninterrupted opportunity to explore your history; in this session, I’ll ask you to tell your story. Who you are today is the result of all of the things that have happened to shape you along the way. So, we’ll explore your family, education, relationships, and career, and other meaningful areas of your life.

It's quite common to be nervous before your first session; just remember it’s the start of a great journey and indicative of you making a commitment to yourself. Also know that you and I will very much be in conversation together, rather than me firing questions at you, interrogation style.

+ Do I need to have anything with me?

I’d suggest having a means by which to take notes. Some people prefer a paper journal; others prefer to use a note-taking app (I recommend Google Keep).

+ How active and participatory are you during our sessions?

My therapy style reflects my personality. I am a fierce, passionate, and enthusiastic person (in my personal life, and in my work)… which translates into an active, engaged, and quite participatory therapist. I believe we are in this together, you and I. I very much want to collaborate with you to figure out what is going on and what we’re going to do about it. I love giving you strategies to try, and to process with you whether they worked or not. I will cheer you on and get excited when you succeed, and provide support, guidance, and encouragement when you’re struggling.

+ Do you assign homework for me to do between sessions? Why or why not?

Most definitely.

I often tell clients that therapy doesn’t happen in our one session each week… it actually happens during all the hours between sessions. It is in those hours when you have the opportunity to play around with, and practice, the concepts we discuss in session.

Homework is an opportunity for you to develop skills to command your own wellbeing and to direct your own happiness.

+ I’ve never been to therapy before… how do I know if I need to schedule a session?

My clients reach out to me because anxiety has hijacked their lives. They do not feel free to do what they want, go where they want, or live the way they’d like. They are hampered, held back, limited by their anxiety.

And they don’t know what to do about it. They’ve tried everything they know to do, and those things may work for a while, but these difficulties, these struggles, these feelings come back.

They are tired of living this way. They are tired of tolerating their lives. They are tired of simply surviving, rather than fully living. Their lives are getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller as they try to manage their worries, their fears, their discomfort and pain.

My clients want to be free to choose to do what excites them. They want to channel their energy and unique gifts toward achieving their goals, connecting to others, and building their confidence. They are ready to move forward. They’re ready for it to be different. And they’re ready to work for it.

If their experiences resonate with you, let’s talk about it. Reach out by e-mail or fill out the contact form to schedule a consultation call.

It takes courage to say you’re struggling… you need help… you can’t figure this out on your own. It doesn’t mean you’re not capable. All it means is that you need information, support, and tools in order to feel better.

+ What is therapy exactly?

Therapy is an opportunity for true self-care. We, unfortunately, often think of self-care as a momentary pleasure — a day off work or a spa service, for example. But, true self-care has a longer lasting impact, because it has to be made a regular occurrence. Therapy, therefore, is time regularly set aside to identify and work through patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that negatively impact your life, and to then create and practice strategies to change those patterns.

In the therapy I practice, we will look at how your thoughts impact how you feel and how you behave. The way we think is enormously powerful. And, the most distressing feelings we have often come from thoughts that are just not true. (“I’m not good enough.” “I’m going to fail.” “They think badly of me.” “I’m going to die.” And on and on…)

We’ll also explore whether you’re living your life as fully as you’d like. The present moment is the only moment you actually have. And we spend many, many of those moments elsewhere. For example, taking a shower is a sensory rich experience; we can set the water to the exact right temperature, we have lovely smelling body wash and shampoo… but we don’t feel the water on our skin and we don’t smell the soap. Our body may be in the shower, but we are elsewhere. How many moments do we spend this way? And, more importantly, how do we feel when we live this way? (Hint: Cultivating the ability to be present in the moment is linked to lower rates of anxiety and depression… because, if we’re not in the shower with our body, we’re not fantasizing about that beach vacation we took a year ago; no, instead we are much more likely to be making lists and anticipating problems that never happen.) There is no judgment inherent in this example; we all do this, every single day, and will continue to do it. The key is to become aware that it’s happening and practice strategies to no longer allow it to affect us negatively.

+ How long should I commit to being in therapy, at least in the beginning?

I suggest anticipating an initial time frame of three to six months.

+ What kinds of therapeutic approaches do you use?

First, let me say that I use evidence-based approaches to therapy, which means that scientific research has repeatedly determined that these strategies are effective in reducing emotional distress and promoting behavioral change. (And, many of the strategies I use also have super cool neuroscience findings to suggest that they physiologically alter the brain, and increase activity in the areas of the brain associated with attention, concentration, and emotional regulation!)

I approach therapy with a number of different interventions. Let’s first talk about mindfulness-based interventions. This is a fancy way to say that I help people learn how to harness the present moment and actually engage in, and truly live, their lives. The present moment, the moment you’re in right now, is the only moment you actually have. All the moments before are gone, and our future moments are not guaranteed. And, we spend a whole lot of the moments we have somewhere else… worrying about something that already happened, or freaking out about something bad that will (likely not) happen later. Which means we’re not really living. And when we allow our minds to do this, we have increased anxiety and decreased happiness. With mindfulness exercises, we learn how to harness the power of our attention, and practice how to be present, in order to reduce anxiety and reclaim our lives.

Let’s also talk about the powerhouse of strategies I have available to me from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT). CBT operates under the idea that your thinking helps to create the way you feel (both emotionally (nervous, on edge, panicky) and in your body (heart pounding, shallow breathing)). And then, in response to those feelings, you engage in a behavior. But, the behavior you choose is often designed to get the feelings to stop as soon as possible… which ends up making the way you feel worse. A concrete example: You’re afraid of spiders. If you even think of a spider, you start to feel nervous and your body reacts too. So, you do everything you can to stay away from spiders… which just makes spiders even more scary. This same principle is in operation for all the things that feel scary and uncomfortable, and for all the things that hold you back, although your situation may have much more subtlety and be much more complex. Regardless, the way through is to identify the thoughts that create the feelings, and the behaviors that make the feelings worse. And then practice changing them.

We’ll also work with principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT) (a really cool form of therapy that builds on the principles of mindfulness and CBT and helps you learn psychological flexibility and live in line with your values) and Positive Psychology (which builds your psychological strengths and encourages you to focus on flourishing in your life).

And, we can also incorporate the principles and practices of Yoga. (In addition to being a psychologist, I am also a Registered Yoga Teacher). We can integrate the philosophy of yoga (ideas to create a meaningful and purposeful life), with practices to hone attention and concentration, breathwork practices, and physical postures and flows to reduce anxiety, foster emotional wellbeing, and connect to a sense of purpose.

+ So wait, yoga integrated into therapy, how does that work?

As you’ll see in the story of my personal and professional journey, both below and on the Meet Julia page, I shifted my practice of psychology, quite significantly, as I was in the process of completing yoga teacher training.

In my training program, I was required to read key yoga philosophy texts, and was quite surprised to discover a ton of overlap between yoga and the psychological principles I learned in graduate school. For example:
• The therapeutic concept of mindfulness is a key part of yogic principles focused on attention (pratyahara) and sustained concentration (dharana and dhyana);
• The key ideas of CBT are mirrored in the yogis approaches to the connections between thoughts, feelings, and behavior;
• Relaxation training and breathing techniques from therapy are related to the yogic concepts of breath control (pranayama) and mindfulness;
• The concepts key to ACT — accepting situations as they are, learning psychological flexibility, and living in line with your purpose and values — are wholly consistent with the teachings of yoga;
• As are the principles of Positive Psychology — building on your strengths, fostering gratitude, and focusing on flourishing.

So, my approach to therapy is influenced by the consistencies between yoga and psychology, and the power of the mind-body connection to heal ourselves and promote wellbeing.

I bring those shared concepts into therapy, using mindfulness, meditation, and the harnessing of attention and concentration to promote present moment awareness; breathing techniques to calm your mind and body (particularly your nervous system); exploring how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected; and considering how you are approaching the trajectory of your life.

And… if you like… I can guide you through the physical practice of yoga in our sessions, and also provide you with yoga postures and flows to practice outside of session to bring your body into treatment as an ally.

+ I’ve tried meditation… and I can’t do it. Is meditation really that important?

Soooo many of my clients tell me this!

Many people think the goal of meditation is to sit quietly and clear your mind… but they can’t clear their mind so they think they suck at it.

Two things: neither blissfully clearing your mind and not sucking at it are the point … and you’re going to suck at it (and it’s completely fine that you suck at it).

The most basic point of the most basic meditation I will teach you (focused attention meditation) is to choose something to focus on (like the breath) and then commit to focus on it for a specific period of time. Your mind will not be quiet, blissful, and still. How could it be? You haven’t trained it to be able to do so (yet). Your mind will wander. And it’s okay that it does. Your only job as the meditator? To notice it has wandered away and return it to the thing you’ve chosen to focus on.

Why is this important? Because, with meditation, you are practicing a skill that will translate, in a really powerful way, to your everyday life. When you practice being able to focus your attention in meditation, you become better able to identify your thoughts when you’re not in meditation, see problematic patterns in your actual life that cause you distress, and then have the opportunity to do something about it.

+ Do you have any specialty training in yoga?

In addition to my foundational 200-hour training to become a Registered Yoga Teacher, yes, I’ve completed specialty training in yoga for anxiety and depression, trauma sensitive yoga, and yoga for disordered eating and body image.

+ What’s unique about the work you do?

I’ve found my niche in working with clients in situations where the mind-body connection can be particularly healing.

And, I’ve found the thread of anxiety running through all of my clients’ experiences.

Treating anxiety is very much about identifying problematic thoughts and behaviors. We experience it in our thoughts and emotions, and also feel it in our bodies.

Bringing the role of the body into treatment was a revelation for me. So much of what I, and my colleagues, have learned in terms of mental health treatment involved only the mental processes related to emotional distress. We, in mental health, have ignored everything from the neck down for a very long time. Being able to bring the power of the physical body into treatment as an ally, as another tool in my toolbox, was a game changer in the way I approach therapy.

The gastrointestinal (GI) niche I’ve developed is also pretty unique (and something about which I’ve become pretty passionate!). Many clinicians realize people with anxiety often experience GI symptoms. But, I believe I’ve connected a few additional dots; that is, the stress and anxiety of having a GI condition exacerbates the GI condition and causes an entirely separate set of limitations in people’s lives. People have anxiety about whatever they’re anxious about – work, social events, relationships. And, they have GI symptoms, and their experience of anxiety either creates their GI symptoms, or makes their GI symptoms worse. That’s all pretty standard stuff. But, what I’ve realized is that the stress and anxiety of having the GI condition is an entirely additional thing! That is, people then begin to experience secondary anxiety about having the GI symptoms and how the GI symptoms impact their life.

+ Is therapy really effective for IBS?

Yes!

There is a significant connection between the gut and the brain. (There is a reason we call it a ‘gut feeling.’) And, there is also a significant relationship between anxiety and the gut. I got really curious when I realized that so many of my anxious clients had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and other gut-related issues; although their GI symptoms got better as the anxiety reduced, those GI problems caused them a whole separate set of worries, fears, and angst, specifically because of the GI symptoms themselves.

So, I went exploring and found some strategies and skills to specifically assist clients with IBS to reduce their anxiety generally, and their anxiety about their IBS symptoms specifically… and we see both their anxiety and their GI symptoms reduce. It’s really, really rewarding work for me, and significantly impactful on the lives of my clients.

+ What beliefs and values do you hold that inform your approach to therapy?

I fully believe the mind-body connection is real and can be used as a powerful vehicle for healing.

I believe that the present moment is all we really have… so we need to learn how to make the most of it.

I believe that we often confuse our thoughts and feelings. And, I firmly believe that we are not simply our thoughts. When we learn to question our thoughts, to wonder if they’re actually true, we become much more in control of how we feel.

I believe we must struggle to grow. And, I further believe that your struggle is genuine, and that comparing (or perhaps minimizing) your difficulties to those of others less fortunate than yourself does not make your pain any less real.

I believe we all have the ability to reach our highest potential… but that it takes work — regular, consistent practice.

I also believe that our happiness is largely within our own control. The way we think, the way we talk to ourselves, and the way we interpret and respond to what happens to us is much more influential than what has occurred.

I believe that some of us have a leg up with this happiness thing, and that some of us have to work harder to be happy than others.

And, I believe we often prioritize the wrong things, that we strive for external validation, foregoing our own needs and ignoring our own voices, in order to do what “looks good,” and that striving causes significant suffering.

+ How much do you share about yourself during our time together?

I only share information about myself that will benefit your growth or advance our work together. I’m clear that our relationship is about your journey, not mine. Therefore, I may share an example from my personal life, or my own feelings, but only when it is helpful to you for me to do so.

+ How will our relationship be different from my relationships with friends and family?

I once had a client whose fiancée desperately wanted to come to our sessions. She was so frustrated that my client told me things that he hadn’t shared with her. He told me that he was able to tell me such things because he knew I wouldn’t react emotionally, I wouldn’t be upset; he knew he could share anything with me and trust that I would respond with warmth, with support, and without judgment, and then help him sort his own feelings about it. His fiancée loved him and wanted to support him. But, what he shared with me would — understandably — have triggered an emotional reaction in her… because that information directly affected her life in a way it didn’t affect mine. And, I had training and expertise to help him figure out how he felt and how to work through it in a way that she could not. After we had done all of that hard work together, he was then able to tell her about it too.

It is hugely important to have loving, supportive people in your personal life. You may talk to them about the same things you talk to me about. But, a therapeutic relationship is entirely different because it’s wholly about you. It’s 100% about hearing you, supporting you, and helping you process what you’re experiencing.

+ What’s the best part of the work for you?

Sounds cheesy … but it’s true: celebrating client successes. Seeing my clients reclaim their life from fear and anxiety, and become empowered and stand in their own strength, is truly a great day at work for me.

+ What does it mean to be a psychologist? How long were you in school?

Psychologists and psychiatrists are the most highly trained mental health professionals. Psychologists hold doctoral degrees in psychology, as opposed to simply master’s degrees in psychology, social work, or counseling. And, we are the most highly trained professionals with regard to psychological assessment and diagnosis; we are the only professionals trained to administer psychological testing.

Psychiatrists, on the other hand, go to medical school, and are therefore able to prescribe medications.

So, as a psychologist, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology. In order to obtain that degree, after completing my bachelor’s degree, I received six years of graduate level training, five years in graduate school, and then an additional year in a post-doctoral fellowship.

+ Why did you become a psychologist?

Honestly, I was in search of ways to change the problematic patterns in my own family. I’m quite certain I was not aware of it at the time I became a psychology major, or even when I enrolled in graduate school. But hindsight, and my own therapy, suggest it is true.

And, while I may not have been able to make much of an impact in the more ingrained problematic patterns in my family, I have succeeded in creating a happy, fulfilled life for myself, and in assisting my sister to learn how to do so as well. And… BONUS… I now have the ability to work with my clients to do so too.

+ Have you always been a therapist, or did you do other work as a psychologist?

I was a forensic psychologist — in private practice — for a decade before shifting into a clinical therapy practice. In that role, I evaluated criminal defendants regarding whether they posed a risk of violence or whether they were sane at the time they committed the offense of which they were accused. I also had the opportunity to do a lot of other cool things related to how psychology and the law come together, in the criminal justice system and in other areas as well.

I really enjoyed that work.

In 2015, I enrolled in a 200-hour yoga teacher training program. I pursued this training not for any professional reason but because I wanted to deepen my own yoga practice (and because I love being in school, I wanted the structure of a formal training program and the connection to my fellow students).

I started meditating much more intensively during this training, and while reading yoga philosophy, started making connections between what I was learning from yoga and what I had learned in my graduate psychology training. I also began to learn how to harness the power of my body to have an impact on my happiness. I organically started blending the evidence-based therapeutic practices from psychology with the growing body of knowledge from yoga and meditation.

I had no intention of making a career shift, but I began exploring what it might look like to be more selective about the forensic cases I was taking, and to become excited about the idea that I could teach and therapeutically treat others what I was learning.

And… I enjoyed doing this new work so much that I phased out the forensic work entirely in 2018!

+ A forensic psychologist — really? So, you were like Clarice Starling in ‘Silence of the Lambs’?

Nope. Sorry to disappoint!

Clarice Starling was a student at the FBI academy. And her boss, Jack Crawford, was a criminal profiler and the head of the Behavioral Sciences Unit at the FBI.

I never worked with police departments during active cases to profile suspects at large… and I never carried a gun to work. But, I did spend a whole lot of time in jails and prisons, evaluating defendants accused of crimes, others who had been found guilty, and still others who were found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity.

Have you ever examined a dead body?

Again, no. You may be thinking of medical examiners, forensic anthropologists, or forensic pathologists.

For the most part, psychologists need the folks we’re working with to be alive. But, I did do a number of evaluations where the person I was evaluating was deceased.

There is a type of evaluation forensic psychologists perform called a retrospective evaluation, where we evaluate a person’s prior mental state (rather than their current mental state). I performed retrospective evaluations to evaluate a person’s testamentary capacity (their capacity to make a valid will); sometimes, after the person has died, their family doesn’t believe the will is valid, and fights it out in court. In those cases, I was asked to retrospectively evaluate whether that person was capable of rendering the will, at the time they made the will, obviously before they died. Psychological autopsies are also retrospective evaluations. Forensic psychologists are often asked to evaluate a deceased person’s state of mind prior to their death to figure out if they may have taken their own life. (As a matter of interest, insanity evaluations — much of the work I did — are also retrospective evaluations because we evaluate the defendant’s mental state at the time they committed the crime, not their current mental state. But, those defendants are not deceased. They’re alive and facing charges for the crimes they’ve allegedly committed.)

+ What do you do when you’re not working?

I read. Voraciously.

I cook. I love to eat. I’m currently in the process of learning how to make sourdough bread (I made my own starter!)

I’m active. I run, strength train, and practice yoga. I hike and backpack. I love being outdoors.

I love to explore. There is absolutely no cap on the list of places I wish to visit, food I want to eat, shows I want to see, people I want to meet, books I want to read, and skills I want to learn.

And, the best part of my life is my connection to my husband, our friends and family, and our pup.