No mystery about how this works.

Step one: the free consult

Fifteen minutes, no cost, no obligation. You describe what is bringing you in, in whatever words you have for it. Zandria asks a few questions, explains how she works, and gives an honest read on whether this practice is the right place for what you are dealing with. If it is not, you get a direction to go in rather than a polite brush-off. Plenty of people use the consult mainly to find out whether they can stand talking to this particular person, which is a perfectly good use of it.

Step two: intake and getting oriented

The first full session covers history, current symptoms, what you have tried before, what you want different, and the practical paperwork including consent and the limits of confidentiality. It is a conversation, not an interrogation, and you control how much detail you give on day one. Nothing requires you to walk through your worst memory in the first hour.

Step three: a plan you can actually state

Early on, the two of you agree on what you are working toward and roughly how. That might be trauma processing with EMDR or CPT, skills work with CBT for anxiety, sleep or low mood, or a sequence that starts with stabilisation and moves into trauma work when you are ready. The plan is written in plain language. If you cannot say what you are working on, the plan is not doing its job.

Step four: the ordinary weeks

Sessions are 50 minutes, usually weekly at the start. They are structured without being scripted: a check on the week, focused work on one or two things, and a close that leaves you regulated rather than raw. Most approaches used here involve something between sessions, which is usually small and specific rather than homework in the school sense. Weeks where nothing much happens are part of the process, not a failure.

Pacing is negotiated, not imposed. Trauma work in particular moves at the speed of your nervous system. Saying "not today" is allowed and does not derail anything.

Step five: checking whether it is working

Progress gets reviewed out loud at intervals rather than being assumed. What has shifted, what has not, and whether the approach needs adjusting. If something is not working, the honest options are change the method, change the focus, or refer you to someone better suited, and all three are on the table. Therapy that drifts for a year without either party being able to name a change is not therapy anyone should be paying for.

Step six: ending well

The goal is not to keep you in therapy. It is to get you to the point where the thing that brought you in is no longer running your life, then to taper rather than vanish. Some people finish a protocol and stop. Some move to every other week and then to occasional check-ins. Some come back a year later for a specific reason, which is normal and welcome.

What therapy here is not

It is not advice-giving, and it is not someone nodding for fifty minutes. Zandria is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, EMDR trained and CPT certified, and the work is person-centred but goal-oriented. She is not a prescriber, so medication questions belong with your physician or psychiatric provider, though coordination with them is possible when it helps. No outcome is guaranteed, and anyone who guarantees one should be treated with suspicion.

Ready

Read what happens in the first session, check the FAQ, or book the free consult. Sessions can also be booked directly on Headway.