VOICEMAILS: If you need to contact your therapist between sessions, please call her or his phone number and leave a voicemail message. Your therapist is often not immediately available; however, she or he will attempt to return your call within 24 hours.

Please do not include clinical and/or personal content in voicemails. It is preferable for you to journal your thoughts and bring them to your next session. If you need a session sooner than the one scheduled, please let your therapist know.

EMERGENCIES: If an emergency situation arises, please do not leave a voicemail. Please immediately call 911 or any local emergency room. Our therapists do not offer crisis counseling or emergency services.

It is tremendously helpful for you to work through your feelings and thoughts between sessions. That is an important part of healing. Often, as clients are processing these thoughts, they send emails or texts with questions that they want to ask or thoughts that they just want to share. Because of this, we have set the following guidelines for emails and texts between sessions.

GUIDELINES:

ADMINISTRATIVE EMAILS: It is fine to use regular email and texts for administrative items such as changing appointments. You can also use our secure messaging feature in the client portal. Please ask your therapist to enable that feature for you.

COPY PARTNER: If you do send an email or text and are in couples counseling, please always copy your partner. This helps us maintain trust.

EMERGENCIES: Please do NOT send an email or text for emergency situations. In those cases, you need help that can respond immediately. Your therapist is not always available and can NOT be counted on to support you 24 hours a day. The best approach is to call 911.

CLINICAL MATTERS: Even though your therapist deeply cares about you and your situation, please do not send emails with thoughts about what happened in therapy, background on your personal lives, or other matters related to our clinical work together.

This information is better processed by discussing it in session because your therapist can:

• fully experience your tone of voice and body language,

• ask questions to help clarify what may be unclear,

• explore your concern with your partner in real time,

• avoid giving you poor counsel based on limited written information, and

• avoid getting caught in the middle.

BRING THOUGHTS INTO SESSION: We generally recommend that you journal or write an email to yourself and then, when in session, read it out loud in session. This is a great way to prepare your thoughts and then have a robust discussion. If you need to discuss or resolve an issue before our next scheduled session because it is time sensitive, it is best to schedule an extra appointment.

ONE-PARTNER SESSIONS: If you need to communicate something that you do NOT want your partner to hear, please let us know this and we can schedule a special session. See the FAQ about one-partner sessions.

SPECIAL EMAIL COUNSELING: For some couples, the situation is such that the couple needs or benefits from significantly more between-session support. In such cases, we will read and respond to emails between sessions; however, both partners must consent to this and your therapist must approve this "special email counseling" in advance.

With some couples, one partner (who writes a lot) can flood the other partner (who does not feel comfortable with processing through text). In such cases, email counseling is not advised.

When we agree to special email counseling, we bill the time spent separately.

PRIVACY: Lastly, please know that electronic communications, even ones just sent for administrative purposes, can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you send an email, please do so knowing that you are willing to accept the risk of a breach of confidentiality.

FINAL WORDS: It is difficult to turn away from your heartfelt communications because we really do care. Please know that our policy is aimed at healthy boundaries and setting up a safe place where you can both feel fully heard. After serving many couples, our experience has taught us that this approach ultimately leads to better healing for you. Please accept our sincere apologies if this policy hurts your feelings in any way!

Our therapists do not accept friend or contact requests from current or former clients on social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instigram, etc). Adding clients as friends or contacts on these sites could compromise your confidentiality. It may also blur the boundaries of our therapeutic relationship. If you have questions about this, please bring them up in session so it can be discussed further.

No. Co-parenting counseling is designed so you do NOT have to rely solely on the legal system. The goal is for both parents to treat each other in a clear kind way so you create the best experience possible for your children. When the legal system is heavily involved, this usually means that one or both parents are struggling emotionally.

Your therapist‘s role in co-parenting counseling does NOT include an evaluation of parenting abilities of either parent. If one of the co-parents determine at any time that we are unable to work together to meet the establish goals of our sessions, please discuss this so we can reset our goals or end therapy.

Your therapist understands that she or he has been given no authority by the court. Therapeutic sessions are not intended to be used for litigation purposes. All parties agree not to call your therapist to serve as a witness in any litigation that currently is in process or in any future litigation unless prior written agreement is made with your therapist.

If you need a custody evaluation, we usually recommend Dr. John Orlando, PSYD, MFT (408-295-5050).

Waiting room - 12 and over:

You may bring your child to the waiting room if your child is 12 years old or older and is capable of remaining in the waiting area, without disruption, for the parent's full session time. Please know that responsibility for all aspects of the child's behavior rests solely with the parent, as does responsibility for the safety of the child. There will not be any staff or supervision available to assist your child if he or she is in distress or to prevent him or her from harm.

Waiting room - under 12:

Due to the risk of injury and possibility of disruption to the care of other patients, all children under 12 years old in the waiting room must be under the direct supervision of an accompanying adult at all times.

Infants in therapy room:

Couples therapy is generally not a place for your baby or toddler. Rather, it's a place free of distractions where a couple can focus on each other and learn how to get their needs met. Over the long term, this will better equipped the couple to meet the needs of their child. Your therapist may make exceptions if the couples session is focused on how to interact with the child; however, this should be discussed well in advance.