It’s a bit of a play on words. When coming up with a name for my Instagram page, which I started as a graduate student just trying to share some insights, I thought of a phrase that came up often in my work (and funny enough, still holds true today).

I worked exclusively with kids and teens in my first two years of clinical practice and was repeatedly intrigued by how cool each of those kids were.

Maybe it’s just part of who I am, but I think that being a good therapist partly requires the capacity to see not only the challenges, but also the redeeming qualities each client has. I find something good in everyone I work with.

Leading to the point: “This one is really going places!”

Eventually I did branch out and work with more adults, but youth continued to be an area of specialty for me. Between the focus on positive development in our youth and the inevitable growth I observe in my clients over the course of our work (regardless of age!) - I believe you’re Growing Places.

If we work together, I strive for that day (that similar to some of my other successful clients) you’ll say: that’s me!

I’m the founder and sole force behind Growing Places Mental Health — therapist, scheduler, biller, marketer, web designer, and more.

As an American-born Asian-Hispanic eldest daughter I bring not only academic expertise, but lived experience shaped by high expectations, anxiety, and deep empathy for those breaking cycles of dysfunction.

I never planned to become a therapist growing up (oops, is that taboo to say?), but witnessing mental health struggles and generational trauma up close led me to this path: one I now feel deeply passionate about.

My work is rooted in real-life understanding, not just theory, and I know the difference a good therapist can make.

With over 6 years of experience across individual and group therapy, workshops, and research, I’ve supported kids, teens, and adults through a wide range of challenges — from everyday stress to life-altering crises. Whether it's teaching a child to breathe through bubbles or helping a family navigate homelessness… my career experiences have driven home the importance of meeting people where they are in their journey.

Therapy with me is collaborative, culturally aware, and grounded in trust. I may not be the right therapist for everyone — but for the right person, I’ll be fully in their corner.

I try to take an integrative approach tailored to each of my client’s unique needs. Often I’ll answer “CBT through a person-centered lens” though.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered the gold-standard for multiple clinical concerns (such as anxiety, depression, and more) based on various supporting studies over the years… and lucky for you: My clinical training was largely focused on CBT. It’s not all I use though.

Depending on what we need in the moment, I’ll be drawing from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you live a life aligned with your identified values, Motivational Interviewing to build your commitment and confidence in achieving change, or sprinkles of skills from other approaches I’ve picked up over the years.

I strive to understand the people I work with in the context of the systems in which they live, because I believe that therapy that fails to consider that fails the client.

What I never lose sight of regardless of the approach used is the fact that all of my clients are people with their own unique background, challenges, strengths, and needs.

As I get my practice started, I’ve opted to run fully virtual as I’ve had success working with people virtually over the past 5 years.

Especially given that I work with young people who feel comfortable with technology and likely are often on the go, I find that this option works pretty well.

Consider this:
For a lot of people, starting therapy can involve a lot of initial hurdles that result in giving up along the way. Virtual therapy helps remove some of those, as we cut out the commute and everything associated with it (ex: pick your outfit, make sure you’re fed, sit in traffic, find parking, drive yourself back after possibly having a therapeutic cry and processing trauma, etc.).

Working online does require a bit more creativity and cleverness at times. Fortunately for you, I’ve had to adapt and thrive during the height of COVID (when there were less teletherapy tools at our disposal) in order to complete my training.

Even prior to widespread use of online therapy we’ve seen recently, there have been research studies regarding the effectiveness of virtually delivered therapy for a variety of mental health concerns. Overall the consensus is that virtual services are just as effective in most cases to in-person services (especially when using CBT, which is one of the main approaches I was trained in).

Of course, teletherapy isn’t for everyone (please note the “most cases” above) and some people just prefer connecting with someone in-person at a private office with cool, zen vibes.

If you’re ready to get a head start on your healing journey: Give online sessions a try with me!

There’s a few reasons and truthfully, until I started working in this field I didn’t understand why a professional would be self-pay only.

Some reasons that changed my perspective:

• Insurance requires me to assign you a diagnosis for coverage, sometimes within the first session.

  • This diagnosis often times is not accurate and will likely change. That’s the reality of labelling someone within an hour of knowing them.

  • Diagnostic labels can follow people. For better or worse. This means you may have other providers through insurance that are aware of your assigned diagnosis without you telling them and this may impact the care you receive from them. For example, studies often discuss the implications of women’s medical complaints being dismissed due to “anxiety” (with or without an official diagnosis).

  • Before the ACA, mental health diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD (just as some examples) would be considered a pre-existing condition and could result in higher insurance premiums. I’m not a fortune teller, so I can’t predict the future of healthcare laws but I am a counselor committed to doing her best to avoid harm to you (and this is one of the ways I am trying).

• Insurance gets to dictate how long you’re allowed to get treated for and what we get to focus on.

  • Some people like the idea of this, but I’ve worked for multiple grant-funded programs and studies where treatment is limited to a certain timeframe and/or clinical concern and notice there’s a lot of people who prefer to have control over how long they get to see their therapist and what they get to seek support on in their sessions.

  • Without insurance, we have more flexibility to meet your unique needs.

• Your insurance may not cover the full cost of virtual (and/or in-person) mental health services and sliding scale may be a better option.

  • This varies by insurance of course (happy for you if you have a great insurance), but I’ve worked for places that take insurance and have seen people pay almost the same cost (or more!) out-of-pocket than my sliding scale fee on a weekly basis.

• Sometimes insurance gives everyone trouble with actually paying for the services you receive.

  • This is stressful for clients to deal with.

  • This also means therapists do not get paid or sometimes even need to pay back insurance companies for services rendered.

Before working with a mental health provider out-of-pocket, you are required to receive a good faith estimate due to the no surprises act (2022) which will provide a detailed estimate of potential cost of services so that you can make an informed decision on what will work best for your finances and personal needs. I provide this in your initial paperwork prior to our first virtual session.

The simple and straightforward answer is that you reach out to me, I schedule a free 15-minute call with you, and if we mutually agree we’re a good fit for one another then we move forward with scheduling your first session!

For anyone who has anxiety, I understand that knowing what to expect can be helpful. Although I can’t guarantee it’s exact, below is how things usually go! (and I have a similar one you can read for consultations and first sessions).

Client is interested in services with me:

• Client reaches out via some platform (this website, psychology today, etc.) because they are interested in possibly working together.

• Within 24-48 business hours the client will likely receive either an email and/or text message from me offering to schedule the free 15-minute consultation call.

  • Side note: I’m really proud to say generally I am on the ball with responding in a timely manner unless there’s something out of the ordinary happening (ex: illness, out-of-office, etc). I feel like this shouldn’t even have to be mentioned, but consistently over the years I’ve had people tell me that they’ve reached out to multiple therapists, practices, and/or agencies and either never received a response or heard back weeks/months later… Even if we aren’t a great fit, I do my best to reach out and communicate that to you rather than leave you wondering.

• Client schedules their free 15-minute consultation phone call and can reach out via email and/or text if they need to reschedule.

Straightforward answer: I’ll just give you a call at the time/day we scheduled and we’ll talk for about 15-minutes to see if we’re a good fit before moving forward with scheduling a first session.

Getting started with a new therapist can be intimidating and to reduce anxiety for some folks, below is a more detailed description. While I can’t guarantee it’s exact, it’s fairly similar most of the time (and there’s a similar list for first sessions you can check out).

Initial Consultation Call:

• Client just needs to be available to receive call from (305) 209-3734 (me!) at the scheduled time.

• Yep, that’s it. Usually there’s no paperwork necessary unless I feel that I may need some more clarity before our call.

  • Pre-call paperwork might happen if I have a feeling I may not be the correct fit for you. In which case, I’d communicate that and if you’d like we can use our scheduled call time to discuss potential referrals so that hopefully you can find the right professional for your needs.

• Although you are not required to do so: some people find it helpful to write down questions for their potential therapist before the scheduled consult call. I want you to feel empowered and informed while we work together and I believe that answering relevant questions for you (if you have any questions at all… if not, it’s ok!) is an important step in this process.

• During our call, we will get to both know each other a little better so that you can make an informed decision about working together.

• I might ask you: what brings you to therapy, have you been to therapy before (and if so, what was that like?), do you have any official or suspected diagnoses, do you currently take any meds (or have you taken any previously?), what are you looking for from our work together, etc.

• You’ll get a chance to ask me any questions you may have.

• I’ll let you know a bit about me professionally as well (ex: education, training, experiences — although that’s also available online so I likely won’t spend a lot of time on this unless you have questions).

• If we both feel good about working together, we’ll move forward with scheduling our first session: a video appointment for intake.

• I’ll also let you know of any consents, policies, and other initial paperwork to complete virtually prior to the first session.

I get this question often from a lot of folks that are starting therapy for the first time (and sometimes just generally from people that feel less anxious when they know what to expect!)

While I can’t guarantee this is exactly 100% how your process will go, first sessions usually are like this:

First Session:

• You will fill out your required paperwork before the first session and reach out via email, text, and/or call if you have any questions at all about them.

• You should have received a link from my automated system for your virtual session via email and/or text message (depending on which notifications you’ve enabled during your paperwork process).

  • If you haven’t received a link, please let me know so I can manually send it to you!

• I use Simple Practice for my virtual sessions. You can access sessions just by clicking your personal link, sent uniquely for each session.

  • It does not require an account or downloading an app, but you are more than welcome to download their official app for telehealth on your tablet or phone if you find it helpful to do so.

  • You can click your link to enter the “virtual waiting room” (just a screen lol) optionally a few minutes earlier and make sure you have solid internet connection, a working camera, and audio. At the time of our session, as long as you are “in the waiting room” I can start our session smoothly.

  • If you’re having any technical difficulties, running late, or need to reschedule please reach out to me so I can try to help!

    • If I don’t hear from you, I will usually reach out after a few minues via text message to check up on you and letting you know until when I will be online before it is considered a “no show” and we will need to reschedule.

• During the appointment I will check-in if you have any questions about the forms completed, your experience with navigating Simple Practice for your paperwork and session, and more questions to get to know your history in better detail and set up goals we’ll be focused on during our work together. Easy stuff!

• Before ending session, I will schedule your next appointment. You’ll automatically receive session reminders from Simple Practice for that.

• All Done! Payment at the agreed upon rate will be billed to your credit card on file automatically. No other steps needed on your end, unless payment declines (In which case, future sessions are cancelled until the missed payment is paid in full).