Online therapy in Michigan by secure video. John J. Hartman, Ph.D., FABP, Michigan-licensed psychologist and board-certified psychoanalyst. Free consultation.
If you live in Michigan, you can work with me by secure video from wherever you are: Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Lansing, or anywhere in the Upper Peninsula. I am John J. Hartman, Ph.D., FABP, a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified psychoanalyst. All of my sessions are online. Michigan is where I trained, and I hold a Michigan psychology license.
I have been trained as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and have over 50 years of experience listening to people in order to diagnose and treat their emotional difficulties. These days the listening happens on a screen. It is the same listening.
Psychologists are licensed state by state. Each state runs its own board, and the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards is the body those boards belong to. A psychologist needs a license, or an authorization such as PSYPACT, for the state you are in during the session, wherever the psychologist happens to be sitting.
I am a licensed psychologist in Michigan, issued by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. I am also licensed in Florida and Washington, DC (DC license PSY200001229), and authorized under PSYPACT (APIT, Mobility Number 11223) for telehealth in participating jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia. The American Psychological Association's telepsychology guidelines ask psychologists who work across state lines to know and follow the laws on both ends of the call. For anyone in Michigan, that is settled: the license is there, and so is the training behind it.
After Harvard College, I did my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan. I trained as a psychoanalyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. I taught psychology and psychiatry at the University of Michigan, where I was a tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry. Today I am a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of South Florida, and a Fellow of the American Board of Psychoanalysis, which is what the FABP after my name stands for. I have written six books, and I am still publishing.
None of this requires you to be anywhere near Ann Arbor. Sessions are by secure video, so a kitchen table in Marquette and an apartment in Midtown Detroit are the same distance away, which is to say none.
All sessions are held by secure video, fifty minutes for individual work and ninety for couples.
What you need is modest. A laptop, tablet or phone with a camera and a microphone. An internet connection that holds up for the hour. A room where you will not be overheard or interrupted; headphones help if the walls are thin, and a parked car counts as a room. The same APA guidelines ask psychologists to use secure technology and to protect the confidentiality of what is said and stored. The part on your side is the closed door.
One rule has no exceptions: you need to be physically in Michigan during the session. If you split the year between Michigan and another state, please confirm availability for your location before we book.
Begin with a conversation. Call (813) 787-2048 or send an email for a free 15-minute consultation. We will talk about what brings you, and whether working together makes sense. If it does, we schedule a first session and start the work.
Sessions are by mutually agreed arrangement, generally Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time. Most of Michigan keeps Eastern Time, so no arithmetic is needed. If you are in one of the western Upper Peninsula counties on Central Time, allow for the hour's difference when we set a time.
In my experience, yes. I have practiced by video for years, and the depth of the work carries. Many patients find that speaking from their own home makes it easier to be candid, and the saved commute makes frequent sessions realistic.
The research points the same way. A 2021 meta-analysis in Clinical Psychology Review, covering 57 studies and 4,336 people, found that video sessions produced treatment effects largely equivalent to in-person care. Equivalent is the word: the same work through a different window. Most of those studies tested structured, shorter treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy rather than analytic work. The American Psychological Association keeps a plain-language overview of telehealth if you want to read more before deciding.
Three. Psychoanalysis is the deepest form of the work: frequent sessions that allow lasting patterns to emerge, be understood, and change. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is weekly or twice-weekly therapy that applies analytic understanding to anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and the conflicts underneath them. Couples therapy is for marital, relationship, and sexual conflicts: understanding the patterns two people build together, and how to change them.
The National Institute of Mental Health describes psychotherapy as a range of treatments that help a person identify and change troubling emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. That is the common ground. The analytic difference is the approach: rather than managing symptoms alone, we use the relationship that develops in therapy to understand the individual conflicts (often originating in childhood) that underlie the difficulties you experience today. Understanding why you feel what you feel is the beginning of lasting change.
I treat a wide range of conditions with psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy: depression, including suicidal feelings; anxiety and panic; self-esteem; relationship conflicts; sexual issues; personality disorders; and trouble at work or school. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself right now, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which answers around the clock, or call 911.
Individual sessions (50 minutes) are $325 and couples sessions (90 minutes) are $475. The first 15-minute consultation is free. A sliding scale is available; ask whether you may be eligible. Payment is by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or wire transfer. Sessions are private pay; if your plan covers out-of-network mental health care, you may submit my bills to your insurer for reimbursement.
Therapy apps assign you a subscription. Here, online therapy means one doctor, a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified psychoanalyst of fifty years, who knows you personally.
Yes, during the session itself. Psychology licenses are state by state, and the Michigan license covers people who are physically in Michigan when we meet. If you travel to Florida or Washington, DC, I am licensed there too, and PSYPACT covers participating jurisdictions such as Maryland and Virginia. Anywhere else, ask before we book.
We simply talk. You tell me what brings you in: there is nothing to prepare and no right way to begin. I will ask about your history and what you hope for. By the end, we will discuss whether working together makes sense. If I am not the right fit, I will help you find someone who is.
Previous therapy experiences can help us understand what you need now. In a free consultation, we can discuss what helped, what did not, and whether psychoanalytic work is a good fit. No judgment. Nothing to prepare. Just a conversation.
That is common, and it is not a problem. Silences, false starts, and "I don't know where to begin" are part of the work, not obstacles to it. My job is to listen for what is underneath the words, including the difficulty finding them. A screen changes none of that.
Yes. Couples therapy is for marital, relationship, and sexual conflicts: understanding the patterns two people build together, and how to change them. Couples sessions run 90 minutes and are held by secure video like everything else. The same location rule applies to both of you.
The first 15-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation. All sessions are online by secure video, for people in Michigan.
Call (813) 787-2048 Prefer to write first? Email Dr. Hartman