Hello, I'm Dr. Karp. I'm glad to communicate with you. Seeking therapy can feel scary, of course, but you're making the right choice. You deserve a safe space to heal, grow and get stronger. Therapy is all about you, helping you become the person you want to be, happier, more joyful, more satisfied, and/or more able to love and feel loved. To help you get there, you must find a therapist who will listen to your unique concerns, even as they change, clarify, and grow throughout the therapy. Everyone is different, even if they have similar symptoms. I trained a lot of beginning therapists, so let me tell you what therapy should not be. Therapy should not be done robotically. I hear that happening a lot these days from people referred to me. It should not be the therapist just sitting there letting you talk, nor should it be the same as chatting with a buddy. Therapists need to work to earn our money just like everyone else. Therapists should agree with you on your treatment goals, and then apply proven techniques to help you reach those goals as quickly as possible, but also flexibly adjust the techniques to meet the needs of each unique individual client. I will do those things. Finally, therapy should not be the therapist talking mostly about himself or herself, meeting his or her own needs in the therapy. I've heard about that happening far too often as well.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
If you are a well-functioning person with a simple problem, we might be able to resolve it in one or two sessions. With a more complex issue or multiple issues, the first session is assessment. We will go over what is bothering you and relevant parts of your history. You may get some insight that you might not have had before, for example, if relationship problems are part of the issue we might discover repeating patterns, but treatment begins after assessment. We will come to a shared view of what the problem is, agree on your treatment goals, agree on how best to work on them, and then I can tell you about how long I think therapy will take. In most cases, you should see significant improvement within a few months. I don’t believe therapy needs to take a long time in most cases. Also, know that therapy with a licensed experienced clinician is a highly successful treatment. For example, for average depression or anxiety, research shows the success rate is up around 85%. For PTSD and trauma disorders, the proven techniques report about 65% cure rates if you complete the treatment, which I will help you do.
What treatment methods and tools do you utilize?
I try to match the treatment technique to the individual client, to find the technique that works best FOR THEM. If the first one doesn’t work well within a short time, we will switch to a different one until we find one that works. Occasionally, I will chance upon a nontypical client that makes me learn a new technique. So, this is a hard question for me to answer. The techniques that have worked best for me in the past: I used EMDR a lot but not exclusively for PTSD and trauma work. I used interpersonal therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy a lot but not exclusively for depression. If someone was depressed because their romantic relationship was not going well, I switched to couples therapy if the partner was willing to come in. I used different techniques for anxiety depending on the type of anxiety, the worry hour for mild-moderate excessive worrying, behavioral treatment for panic attacks, or cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ve done a lot of work on recovering from co-dependence and difficulty with communication and assertiveness, and I used a 12-session training for those issues that worked very well. Another thing is that each technique needs to be shaped and tailored to your individual needs more and more as we go on, so it won’t look the same for everyone by the time we are done.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
My three biggest strengths in therapy are that I really listen to my clients and try to understand their unique stories and perspectives. I honestly do care about wanting my clients to improve and I work hard, with them, to make it happen. Finally, I'm kind of a smart person. That helps in understanding the research, coming up with suggestions and applying the techniques correctly.