Feedback Informed Therapy
What If You Could Actually See Whether Therapy is Helping?
Starting therapy can feel like a leap of faith.
You may wonder: How will I know this is actually working? How long will I need therapy? Am I making progress? What if I don't feel like we're focusing on the right things?
I believe you shouldn't have to spend months in therapy wondering whether you're moving forward.
That's why I use Feedback-Informed Therapy (FIT) with my clients. FIT is an evidence-informed approach that routinely incorporates your feedback about your progress and your experience in therapy so we can make informed decisions about our work together.
Rather than assuming that a particular therapeutic approach will work simply because it is theoretically sound, we regularly ask a much more important question:
Is this actually helping you?
Therapy Should Be Collaborative - Not Something That Happens To You
You are the expert on your own life.
As your therapist, I bring clinical training, experience, therapeutic tools, and an outside perspective. But you are the person who knows what is actually happening inside your life.
That's why your feedback matters.
FIT creates a structured way for us to pay attention to both your progress and the quality of our work together. Common FIT measures look at areas such as how you're doing in your life and how well the therapy itself is fitting your needs.
If you're improving, we can see that.
If you're stuck, we can identify that.
If something about our approach isn't working for you, we can talk about it.
And if your goals change as therapy progresses, we can change the plan with you.
No More Wondering If You're Making Progress
Many people begin therapy with a specific problem: anxiety, burnout, relationship difficulties, perfectionism, work stress, dating struggles, or feeling generally stuck.
But therapy isn't always a straight line.
Sometimes symptoms improve quickly. Sometimes progress is gradual. Sometimes you discover that the issue you originally came in for isn't actually the deepest issue underneath it.
Tracking your progress gives us another source of information as we navigate that process together.
Rather than relying solely on how you happen to feel on a particular Tuesday, we can look at patterns over time and use that information to guide our work.
The goal isn't to reduce your life to a number.
The goal is to use information to make therapy more intentional.
What Happens If Therapy Isn't Working?
This is one of the most important reasons I use FIT.
If you're not making the progress we'd expect, I don't want us to simply keep doing the same thing and hope something eventually changes.
We can stop and ask:
Are we working toward the right goals?
Is our approach a good fit for you?
Are there obstacles outside of therapy affecting your progress?
Do we need to change the interventions we're using?
Is there something important we haven't addressed?
Has your situation changed since we began?
Is there something about our therapeutic relationship that needs to be discussed?
Research on feedback-informed approaches supports the value of routinely monitoring both outcomes and the therapeutic relationship, particularly when someone may not be progressing as expected.
Sometimes the answer is to change our approach.
Sometimes we need to slow down.
Sometimes we need to address something completely different.
And sometimes therapy is working and you simply need more time.
We don't have to guess. We can look at the information together.
Your Feedback About Therapy Matters Too
I don't just want to know whether your anxiety is improving. I also want to know how you're experiencing me and our work together.
Do you feel heard?
Are we talking about what matters most to you?
Do the tools we're using make sense?
Is the pace working for you?
Is there something you wish we were doing differently?
These questions are important because the therapeutic relationship itself is an important part of effective therapy. FIT formally incorporates feedback about the therapeutic relationship alongside feedback about progress.
I want you to feel comfortable telling me when something isn't working.
You don't have to protect my feelings.
You don't have to agree with everything I suggest.
And you don't have to continue with an approach simply because we've already started it.
Your feedback helps me become a better therapist for you.
A Practical Approach to Therapy
This fits naturally with the way I practice therapy more broadly.
I don't want our sessions to consist of simply talking about your week without a clear sense of where we're going.
I want you to understand why we're doing what we're doing and how it connects to your goals.
Depending on your needs, our work may incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, solution-focused therapy, values exploration, relationship work, behavioral strategies, nervous-system regulation, and practical problem-solving.
FIT allows us to step back throughout the process and ask whether the combination of approaches we're using is actually helping.
This means your therapy isn't a predetermined formula.
It's personalized to you.
How Feedback Informed Therapy Works
The process is simple.
1. We establish your goals.
We begin by understanding why you're coming to therapy, what you want to change, and what you hope your life will look and feel like as a result.
2. We track your progress.
Throughout therapy, you'll have opportunities to provide structured feedback about how you're doing and how therapy is going. FIT commonly uses brief client-rated measures to monitor progress and the therapeutic relationship.
3. We look at the information together.
Your feedback isn't something that disappears into an app. We use it as part of our clinical conversation.
4. We adjust when necessary.
If something isn't working, we change course. If you're making progress, we build on what's working.
5. We work toward greater independence.
The ultimate goal isn't to keep you in therapy indefinitely.
It's to help you develop the insight, skills, confidence, and ability to navigate life more effectively on your own.
Who Might Benefit From Feedback-Informed Therapy?
FIT can be especially helpful if you are someone who:
Wants therapy to feel purposeful and goal-oriented
Likes knowing whether you're making progress
Has tried therapy before and felt like you were talking in circles
Wants a therapist who will adapt rather than use a one-size-fits-all approach
Is highly analytical or data-oriented
Wants practical tools in addition to insight
Has specific goals you want to work toward
Wants to provide honest feedback about therapy
Is unsure whether therapy will actually work for you
It's also particularly aligned with my work with high-achieving adults who are accustomed to measuring progress in other areas of their lives and want therapy to feel equally intentional.
What Makes My Approach Different?
I believe therapy should be both deep and practical.
Understanding yourself matters. But insight alone isn't always enough to create change.
I want you to leave sessions with greater clarity about what is happening, why it's happening, and what you can actually do differently.
Feedback-Informed Therapy adds another layer of accountability to that process. Instead of assuming I'm getting it right, I regularly invite you to tell me how the work is going.
You shouldn't have to wonder whether therapy is helping. We can work together to find out.
