WHAT TO EXPECT

I welcome clients of all backgrounds to my practice, as inclusivity is a core value of mine.

However, many clients who approach me tend to have the following types of experiences and identities:

• Asian American, BIPOC identities, individuals from immigrant families

• People who identify as Christian, including those who hold a more progressive faith

• First generation students, young adults

• People struggling with burnout, such as those working in the helping profession, advocacy spaces, and clergy ministries.

• Members of the LGBTQ+ community

• People interested in long term therapy to make changes in their lives that break generational cycles of trauma

• Many other clients with diverse and unique backgrounds!

My practice is currently set up to serve clients 18 years or older.

My primary therapeutic work with clients is related to trauma, but I work with lots of different struggles, including:

• PTSD/complex PTSD

• Dissociative experiences and identities (plural systems, multiplicity)

• Spiritual abuse and trauma, deconstruction and reconstruction of faith

• Emotional distress from secondary exposure to trauma caused by systemic oppression

• Discovering identity and building a healthy relationship to the self

• Depression and bipolar disorders, and general mood dysregulation

• Anxiety, people-pleasing tendencies, perfectionism

• Obsessive compulsive tendencies

• Grief and loss

• Internalized shame

• Much more

Check out the “Meet Serena” page for more details!

I primarily provide individual therapy and group therapy services.

For individual therapy services, sessions are typically held weekly for 50 minutes per session. However, if you need more or less frequent sessions, we can certainly discuss the best treatment approach for you. Additionally, phone check ins are available should you need additional support during the week, which would be prorated based on the fee of a full session and the number of minutes of the phone session.

For group therapy services, sessions are also held weekly for 75 minutes per group session. Groups are time limited, in that clients sign up for rounds of therapy groups, most which last for 10-12 weeks. However, if enough clients are committed to a more informal support group surrounding a specific topic, I will do what I can to provide that space!

For established clients, I can provide occasional couples sessions and family sessions if such services would be beneficial for the client’s care, treatment, and progress. If you have questions about fees for these supportive sessions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Check out the pages under services for more details!

1. Once I receive your inquiry, I will return your call or email within 2 business days.

2. At that time, we can schedule a free 15 minute consultation to determine whether you and I would be a good fit for therapy. If for some reason I do not have any availability for new clients, I will let you know at this time. You can join my waitlist, and/or I can also provide appropriate referrals to other therapists who may be a good fit should you so desire.

3. During our phone consultation call, I might ask you a few questions about what brings you to seek help and what you hope to get out of therapy. I will also share more about my practice, services, recommendations, and ways I can help you through the healing journey. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask any questions you may have!

The most important goal of our call is to make sure you feel comfortable with me so that your choice to move forward with the process feels empowered and safe!

If we schedule an initial intake appt, I will send electronic intake paperwork for you to sign and send over. Included in the intake paperwork is a form that collects your method of payment, payment information, and options for autopay.

I will have sent you several forms to fill out, such as consents, information on different policies, initial intake information, and questionnaires related to symptoms.

Our first session can be considered an initial assessment. I will briefly review some of the informed consents so that we are on the same page and you are aware of your rights and expectations. After that, we will explore more about your current struggles, how you experience them, and the impact they have on your life. I may gather information about your history, current symptoms, and life circumstances so I have a better understanding of the context in which your current struggles lie.

At any time during the intake process you become overwhelmed, we will pause the process and focus on what would be most supportive and grounding for you in that moment. Getting to know each other takes time and trust building, so there is no pressure to open up in the first session! I will meet you where you are at and will listen to your needs in each moment.

After a few sessions of the initial assessment process, I may check in with you to see how you are feeling about therapy with me. If you would like to continue on, we can move forward in setting goals for therapy and creating a treatment plan!

If you need to cancel your appointment, please call or email me at least 24 hours in advance, otherwise you may be charged the full fee for service. However, if you reschedule your appointment within the same week should our schedules align, you will not incur any additional fees. If the appointment cannot be rescheduled, only then will the fee apply.

There are certainly cases in which cancelling the appointment was impossible due to a life-threatening emergency. Such cases are an exception to the cancellation policy, which will be determined based on my discretion of the situation.

If you have not attended three sessions in a row, your case may be closed, unless discussed previously with me in which the absences were planned and a date of return was scheduled.

Most of my practice is over telehealth for clients all over California. I use a HIPAA compliant video platform called Simple Practice. Each week, you will receive a link to join our online session. If for some reason Simple Practice is not working, I will send you a link to my HIPAA compliant Google Meet link where we can resume our session.

I also have limited openings for in-person sessions in Santa Barbara, CA. At this time, my in-person openings are only on Fridays.

I am available for individual therapy sessions on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. My appointment times are flexible, with hours ranging from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. In the future I may have other weekday appointments, but at this time Wednesdays and Thursdays are closed. I also do not respond to any messages or phone calls on Sundays.

Groups are generally late afternoon or evening, but depend on client requests! Please check out the Group Therapy page and scroll to the bottom to fill out the group interest form. There you can let me know what your preferred times are for groups.

I speak limited conversational Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese. Though I cannot provide therapy in Taiwanese or Mandarin, my comprehension skills are much stronger. This means that if you are bilingual in English, you may mix languages when in therapy. We may need to continue assessing whether this format of therapy is effective, though I provide this option for clients who may not be able to find a therapist who understands their culture/language while working with complex trauma.

Always. Feel free to bring your own mug!