What to Expect in an Intake With Me

Most therapy intakes follow a checklist: name, history, symptoms, family background, insurance information, repeat. It's efficient. It's also, in my experience, not where the real information lives.

Here's how I do it differently, and why.

In our first session, we don't work through a form. We dive straight into what's actually going on for you right now. Not because history doesn't matter; it does, but because how you show up, what you lead with, where you get stuck telling me something, what you skip past, all of that tells me more than a checklist ever could. That first session functions as a real, working intake, not a formality before the "real" therapy starts. From there, I begin shaping a conceptual picture with you of what your therapy could actually look like.

Session two is where we fill in whatever history or context didn't come up naturally in session one, so your treatment plan gets built around the actual person in front of me, not a template.

A few practical things worth knowing upfront:

I typically respond to messages within 2 to 4 business days, most times sooner. That's a deliberate boundary, not distance or disinterest. Protecting my own capacity is part of how I make sure I'm fully present with every client I see, including you.

If you have Nebraska Medicaid, my clinical supervisor joins our very first intake session, as required for provisionally licensed therapists in Nebraska. Every session after that is just the two of us.

If any of this raises a question I haven't answered here, email me. That's what it's there for.