No. Many people come to this work with gaps — families that didn’t talk, histories that were buried, or records that don’t exist. You don’t need a complete picture to begin. Therapy can still help you work with what is showing up now in your body, relationships, and sense of self, even when parts of the family story are unclear or were never spoken aloud.

No. This work is not about flattening your family into villains or ignoring the realities they survived. 

This is one of the most common fears people bring into this work. Understanding how you were shaped by your family is not the same as condemning them. Most caregivers passed on what they themselves inherited: survival strategies, unprocessed pain, silences that were never theirs alone to break. This work is about tracing patterns back to their origins, not assigning fault. That tracing often makes room for something more complicated and more useful than blame: grief, context, compassion where it’s possible, and eventually, more choice.

Yes. You do not need your family’s participation, understanding, or even awareness for this work to be meaningful. Intergenerational healing happens within you — in how you relate to yourself, how you move through relationships, what you choose to carry and what you begin to set down. Your family does not need to be in the room for the patterns to shift. 

The work happens within you: in how you understand your history, how you relate to yourself and others, what you choose to carry and what you slowly begin to set down. You cannot change what your parents or grandparents experienced or how it shaped them. But you can change how it moves through you — and that is, in itself, a form of healing that reaches in both directions.

Therapy may involve exploring family roles, relational patterns, grief, identity, culture, silence, loyalty, and the beliefs you inherited about safety, love, and worth. The goal is not just insight, but more freedom, more self-trust, and more choice in how you live and relate.

Yes. For many people, romantic relationships are where intergenerational patterns become impossible to ignore. The way we learned to attach, to trust, to ask for what we need or to go without it, to tolerate closeness or to keep people at a careful distance. All of it was shaped long before we were choosing partners. Those early templates travel forward. They show up as the relationships we are drawn to, the dynamics we recreate without meaning to, the moments where a partner’s ordinary behavior activates something that feels much older and much larger than the present moment.

Intergenerational trauma can make intimacy feel like a place where old survival strategies get activated: shutting down to stay safe, overgiving to stay connected, leaving before you can be left, staying long past the point of honoring yourself. This work helps you see those patterns more clearly — where they came from, what they were protecting, and what becomes possible when you are no longer living inside them without knowing it.

If you have out-of-network benefits, your insurance may be able to reimburse you for approximately 50%-80% of each session after the out-of-network deductible is met.

Out-of-network psychotherapy coverage varies by carrier and policy. It can be confusing, but you won’t be navigating this alone. If you aren’t sure whether or not you have out-of-network benefits, I can check for you. Just email your insurance card and date of birth to info@imagineemotionalwellness.com 

Meeting consistently and stably on a weekly basis will help build safety and trust, which is essential for the work to progress on a deeper level. Biweekly sessions impact the effectiveness of therapy. 

Often, meeting less frequently results in a ‘catch up’ type of session and does not allow for the time, space, and emotional capacity needed to address what goes on beneath the surface.

Depending on the level of our work, there are also times when meeting two or more times a week is appropriate, and that will always come from us talking and making that decision together.

Therapy can last any time between a year to many more, as long as you are still progressing from our work. The length of therapy depends on what you want and need, and what you want/need can be fluid and dynamic. 

Healing and personal growth is not strict or predictable. You can start off by wanting to address something very specific (e.g. “I want to feel less anxious”), but through our work together could realize a deeper meaning to these anxious symptoms (e.g. “I feel anxious because I am terrified of intimacy” to “I’ve had very familiar experiences of being emotionally suffocated when I was close to people”). Realizing these deeper long-standing issues may then shape the focus and length of treatment. 

Regardless of why you are seeking therapy and how long you hope to be in treatment, it is important to remember that your thoughts and input are invaluable to me, and the pace and length of treatment will always be a collaborative discussion.

Anyone who wants a space to explore themselves and journey towards emotional wellness can benefit from therapy. If you’re unsure, try asking yourself these questions:

• Am I content with the way I live my life?
• Is how I live and relate to others congruent with what I authentically value, feel, and want?
• Are there areas of my life or self-development that I feel stuck in?
• Have I been trying the same things over and over again to feel better, expecting different results, but still feeling stagnant?

You may not need to know the full answer to these questions to try a few sessions. Sometimes, mulling this over aloud with a therapist can help you sort out your thoughts and answers. That’s also part of the therapy process!

Schedule a free 15-minute consultation here