Frequently asked Questions

I’m based in Los Angeles and provide online psychotherapy to adults throughout California. I’m not currently offering in-person therapy.

As a Board Certified Art Therapist, I may also provide private-pay art therapy consultation outside California when legally and ethically appropriate. These services are distinct from psychotherapy and are not eligible for insurance reimbursement.

Online art therapy can work with simple materials you already have at home. We may talk, draw, write, use a digital whiteboard, work with photographs or objects, notice body sensations, or use movement, music, and other forms of creative expression.

You do not need a special art setup. We’ll pay attention to what materials feel useful and manageable for you, and we can use your camera to look at artwork together when needed. Sessions take place through a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform.

Not currently. My psychotherapy practice is fully virtual, and I work with adults throughout California.

I’ve chosen to focus on online work because it allows clients to access therapy from their own environments and gives us considerable flexibility in how we use art materials, objects, movement, writing, and other creative approaches during sessions.

My standard rate is $250 for a 50-minute session. A limited number of reduced-fee appointments are available.

I currently accept Aetna, some Carelon Behavioral Health plans, Kaiser NorCal, Providence Health Plan, and UnitedHealthcare/Optum.

Yes, I currently accept Aetna, some Carelon Behavioral Health plans, Kaiser NorCal, Providence Health Plan, and UnitedHealthcare/Optum.

For other insurance plans, I can provide a superbill that you may submit for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Because benefits vary considerably, I recommend checking with your insurance company about your deductible and reimbursement for outpatient psychotherapy with an LMFT.

If you prefer not to use insurance, my standard private-pay rate is $250 per 50-minute session. A limited number of reduced-fee appointments are available.

The first session gives us time to understand what is bringing you to therapy, what feels most important right now, and what you hope might change.

I’ll ask about your history, current relationships and circumstances, strengths, supports, and anything else that helps me understand the larger context. We may also begin noticing how you experience things emotionally and physically. Art-making is always optional; depending on what feels useful, we might introduce something simple or stay primarily with conversation.

We’ll begin developing a sense of how we might work together, but you do not need to tell your whole story in one session. The first appointment is also a chance for you to notice whether my approach feels like a good fit.

There isn’t one standard length of therapy. Some people come for focused work around a particular experience or transition, while others find longer-term therapy more useful for patterns involving relationships, trauma, grief, identity, adoption, or family history.

We’ll check in periodically about what is changing, what still feels important, and whether the work continues to be useful. Therapy does not need to continue simply because it has already begun.

Online art therapy can be a meaningful and clinically useful way to work. Many art therapy processes adapt well to telehealth, and working from home can give you access to your own materials, photographs, meaningful objects, music, and physical environment.

Not every intervention works equally well online, and not every person prefers virtual therapy. We’ll pay attention to what works for you rather than assuming one format or technique is universally effective.

Art therapy may be useful if some of what you are carrying is difficult to explain in words, if talking begins to feel repetitive or overly intellectual, or if you understand something clearly but still feel stuck with it emotionally, relationally, or physically.

You do not need to think of yourself as creative. Art-making may become central to our work or appear only occasionally alongside conversation. During a consultation, we can talk about what you are looking for and whether art therapy—or a more integrated approach—makes sense for you.

Art therapy is psychotherapy that includes art-making, images, materials, metaphor, and reflection as part of the clinical process. Talk therapy relies primarily on language; art therapy gives us additional ways to notice and work with experience.

Making something gives us a shared point of reference. We can look at it together, notice what changes, return to it over time, or use it to approach something indirectly. Sometimes an image, object, color, shape, or mark can make something visible enough to work with before you know exactly how to explain it.

No. Art therapy is not about artistic skill, and you do not need to make anything beautiful, finished, or even recognizable.

A line, color, list, collage, photograph, shape, object, or scribble can be enough to begin. What matters is not whether the artwork is “good,” but what the process helps us notice and work with together.

That concern is very common—and you will not be graded, interpreted from across the room, or asked to prove that you are creative.

I may offer a material, prompt, or structure, but you always have choice about whether and how you engage with it. Sometimes we make art. Sometimes we write, move, use objects, listen to music, notice sensations, or simply talk. The goal is to find a form and pace that gives us useful access to what you are experiencing, not to turn you into an artist.

Artwork created in therapy is treated with the same confidentiality as the rest of our clinical work.

Because sessions are online, you keep the physical artwork in your own space. If it would be useful for us to see the work more clearly or return to it later, I may ask you to photograph it and send it through a secure method. Any images retained as part of your clinical record are stored within secure, HIPAA-compliant systems.

The artwork itself belongs to you. We can also talk about privacy and storage at home, especially if you live with other people or are working with material you do not want others to see.

Some adoption experiences begin before memory, language, or choice. Others live in photographs, records, family stories, missing information, body sensations, relationships, or questions that return at different stages of life. Art therapy can give these experiences a form we can notice and work with together without requiring everything to be explained in words first.

We might use images, materials, writing, photographs, timelines, maps, objects, or metaphor to explore grief, identity, belonging, attachment, reunion, cultural displacement, family relationships, or what remains unknown. The goal is not to assemble one complete or coherent adoption story. It is to create enough structure, distance, and contact to work with what is present at a pace that feels manageable.

The best way to hear about upcoming adoptee groups, workshops, and other offerings is to join my adoptee mailing list. I announce new programs there first.

You can also follow @arttherapywithnicole on Instagram for updates.