"Associate therapist" sounds like a lesser version of the real thing. It isn't, and it's worth saying plainly why.
A Registered Associate MFT is a licensed clinician working toward full licensure, seeing clients under a supervisor's direct oversight. In this practice that means my associate, Mimi Le, AMFT, carries her own caseload of couples, teens, and individuals, and I review every case with her. You're not getting a watered-down version of the work. You're getting a clinician earlier in her hours, at a rate that reflects that, with the same supervision standard behind every session.
Mimi's approach is presence-centered: less about arriving at some finished, perfected version of yourself, more about returning to alignment with who you already are underneath the noise. For couples, that usually means slowing down enough to see what a recurring fight is actually protecting, rather than refereeing round eleven of it. For teens, it means being met as a whole person already in the middle of becoming someone, not managed as a problem for the adults around them to solve.
Sessions with Mimi are $150, fifty minutes, private pay with superbills provided for out-of-network reimbursement. If cost has been the thing keeping you from starting, or from finally getting your teenager into a room with someone who isn't you, that's exactly what this rate is for. Her full page has more on how she works, and the first twenty-minute consultation is free.
