A focused assessment is a thoughtful, collaborative process that helps you better understand how you think, feel, and relate to the world regarding a specific question or area of your life. Through conversations, questionnaires, and structured tasks that measure your abilities, it can offer valuable insight into your strengths, challenges, and emotional patterns—and can help clarify next steps for a variety of moments in life.

Assessment can be a powerful tool for self-understanding and growth. Here are a few reasons you might consider it:

Clarify Strengths and Growth Areas
Gain a deeper understanding of your personality, cognitive style, and interpersonal dynamics to maximize your potential at work, in relationships, and in life.

Make Informed Decisions
Whether you're navigating a career transition, relationship challenges, or life changes, assessment can offer clarity to guide your next steps with greater confidence.

Improve Relationships
Learn more about how you relate to others and how others experience you—insight that can support healthier, more satisfying connections.

Understand Patterns That Hold You Back
Identify recurring emotional or behavioral patterns that may be limiting your growth, and discover new ways of approaching challenges.

Deepen Therapy or Personal Work
Assessment can complement therapy by offering a focused, in-depth snapshot of your inner world—jumpstarting insight and helping tailor the therapeutic process.

The experience usually includes a mix of interviews, questionnaires, and sometimes performance-based tasks that explore different areas of your functioning—like memory, attention, emotional patterns, and personality style.

The process typically unfolds in a few parts:

An initial consultation where we talk about what’s bringing you in and what you’re hoping to learn.

Assessment sessions, which might include answering questions on a computer, solving puzzles or memory tasks, or responding to more open-ended prompts or images.

A feedback session, where we go over what we found in plain, meaningful language and talk about what it all means for you moving forward.

Most sessions take place in my private office in Madison, Wisconsin—a quiet, thoughtfully designed space intended to support focus, reflection, and confidentiality.

For professionals, creatives, and business teams who prefer to meet in their own environment, I offer onsite sessions for an additional 20% fee. These sessions are available in settings where privacy and confidentiality can be reasonably ensured.

The process usually takes a few weeks from start to finish and involves meeting 2-3 times.

My fee is $230 per hour. The total cost depends on the scope of the consultation. I’ll explain the expected time and cost up front so you can make an informed decision. I ask for 50% of the total fee at the time of scheduling your initial consultation, 25% due at the first session and remaining 25% due before the feedback consultation.

This service is generally not covered by insurance.

One of the biggest benefits of a focused consultation and assessment is the chance to understand yourself—and your relationships—with greater nuance and clarity. How do you take in the world? What drives your decisions, your stress, and your patterns? What’s been working for you, and what’s quietly getting in the way?

Whether you’re navigating a major life transition, growing a business with a partner, building (or rebuilding) a relationship, or simply trying to live and work with more intention, this kind of deep reflection can open space for real transformation.

Depending on what we discover, you might walk away with:

A clearer path forward – Together we can identify what kind of support or structure would truly meet you where you are—whether that’s a therapist, mentor, practice, or simply a new way of approaching your next chapter.

New language for familiar patterns – Sometimes, the most powerful shift comes from naming something you’ve felt for years but couldn’t quite explain. Patterns in relating, thinking, or reacting begin to make more sense—and new choices start to emerge.

Tools for clarity and focus – You might leave with strategies to help you concentrate more fully, organize your thoughts, or move through indecision with more confidence.

Support in work or school – If you’re feeling blocked or out of sync in your professional or academic life, we’ll explore your natural strengths and how to align your energy with what matters most.

Stronger partnerships – For couples, creative collaborators, or business partners, this work can bring greater understanding of each other’s styles, strengths, and blind spots—helping you work together with more ease and trust.

Ways to feel more grounded – If stress or emotion tends to live in the body, we’ll talk about practices that help you feel more centered and at home in yourself.

Thoughtful next steps – If there’s something deeper calling for attention—whether it’s emotional healing, spiritual direction, or just more space to think—you’ll leave with guidance that respects your values, your timing, and your goals.

You won’t receive a diagnosis.

If you are interested in diagnostic assessment, you can find more information about that here.

Focused assessment is not treatment—it’s a structured, time-limited exploratory process designed to support moments in life that may not necessitate therapy, but could benefit from some deeper understanding and guidance.

While therapy is ongoing, relational, and centered on treatment and change, assessment has a defined structure and goal: to facilitate clarity, understanding, and provide guidance to support your next steps regarding a specific question or area of your life.

Coaching typically focuses on goal-setting, accountability, and skill development. Focused assessment is grounded in quantitative and qualitative psychological testing and clinical understanding.

As a licensed psychologist, I approach this work by identifying patterns in personality, relationships, and emotional functioning—many of which operate outside of conscious awareness. This allows for a more comprehensive understanding of what may be contributing to current challenges or decision points.

The goal is not simply to improve performance, but to develop insight that supports meaningful and lasting change.