Why I love telehealth therapy

As someone who loves to shout the benefits of psychological flexibility… flexibility in therapy delivery was not a far reach for me.

The ability to connect from afar is, in my opinion, a critical skill. When the pandemic happened, I had no difficulty transitioning to solely telehealth. While I saw some colleagues struggle with this, I found that my own practices of awareness, acceptance and the identification and use of value-driven actions were easily applied.

Telehealth therapy has been a part of my private practice since I opened in 2018. I have never gone a month without some version of virtual therapy. I saw being an effective telehealth therapist as an absolute requirement.

After working remotely and doing telehealth therapy exclusively for about a year into the pandemic, I came to the decision that I would exclusively work remotely. Navigating the vaxxed, not vaxxed, face-mask, no face-mask drama was also super low on my list of value-driven actions. Let’s just meet from home, or wherever you feel comfortable, and go from there.

As long as I can get help to you if an emergency happens, we can probably meet there. Most clients prefer meeting with me from the privacy of their home, however, like I said, the flexibility of alternative locations has been extremely useful when the situation called for it.

ease of sharing resources

With so much of life happening outside of the therapy setting, and with so much of my approach being behaviorally based, I’ve found the ability to share resources through chat, or sharing my screen really useful.

I’m also a huge reader. If I have a book that I think would help you navigate a situation, I love that I can turn around to my bookshelf, pull it out and show you the page where you can find something that might be helpful.

Licensed in california, hawaii and michigan

I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist serving Californian, Hawaiian and Michigan residents. That’s right, I’m a licensed therapist in three states!

Why these states? It was so bizarre, actually. Maybe because I was not used to meeting people who travelled or worked in multiple states, but I found myself with an unusual number of clients that went back and forth between Hawaii and California. They did it enough times throughout the year that not seeing them while they were in the other state, would interrupt treatment.

Now, it is not a therapists responsibility to become licensed everywhere a person travels. So why did I do it? Honestly, it was 2020 and having as many opportunities to help people, as well as have something for myself to accomplish (pass the AAMFT exam) was helpful to me too. It was a straight-forward enough process to add another license, even though the horror of my original California Clinical Exam came rushing back to greet me as I studied for the AAMFT exam. I now have the honor and privilege of working with people in three states!

My Michigan license was born out of the same necessity. I love being available to my clients. I am looking to become licensed on the entire West Coast, so stay tuned.

Let’s Begin Therapy

phone: (619) 289-7644

email: cynthia@letsbegintherapy.com

virtual office hours: Mon/Wed 1-6pm, Tues/Thurs 8-3pm

session fee: 50-minute session $225

Contact for sliding scale (limited spaces)