About

I see psychotherapy as a way to more fully empower and express one’s self in the world, whether as a child, teen, or adult, and to heal the various “symptoms” or blocks that stand in the way.  It’s my belief and experience that that sense of deep self is, by nature, strong, clear, wise, and, ultimately, caring.  And, yet the way one feels and behaves in life can become painful and problematic through the difficult experiences that life can bring.

I see my role as helping to bring forth the experience of this successful and caring self!  Specifically, I work to assist the client—child, adult, or family— to heal the problematic traumas, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and temperaments that interfere with this, in order to create a more fulfilling and successful life!

I also love to help individuals and families explore and express the deeper, joyful, and fulfilling parts of life—who we can be, as individuals and in our families! 

I chose to be trained in a traditional psychology program, including work in inpatient and day-treatment programs.  Yet, my life experience and ongoing continuing education lead me to seek the understanding of ‘problems’ in a broader, more inclusive, “holistic” view of development.  Seeing growth and development through this lens have led me to also understand the importance of recognizing and seeking fulfillment of deeper life needs and approaches to psychological well-being.  

I received my doctoral-level psychology training at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and the Department of Psychiatry, Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Oakland, California.  As part of that training I gained tremendous insight and skills while working in child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment centers (RTCs). Learning the skills gained in working with severely suffering kids created a strong foundation for my sense of the experiences and needs of children and adolescents.

If my training in those programs was very much within an ‘evidence-based’ western, psychological treatment model, it was also a jumping off point.  I lived and worked for some nine years at the Findhorn Foundation, an internationally-renowned transpersonal educational community/eco-village, in the north of Scotland.  While at Findhorn, as well as gaining a rich depth of experiences and skills in Transpersonal Psychology, I worked as an educator, group facilitator, human resources coordinator, therapist, and gardener.  My time at Findhorn very much serves as the core of the way I see and seek to interact with the world.

Findhorn remains that philosophical base for my approach to life. I have, however, spent the last twenty-five years as a licensed Psychologist, providing evaluation and psychotherapy for a range of people’s needs.   I find that I work particularly well — and very much enjoy — serving kids and teens and their families and this has led me to specialize in that area.  I see my practice as both helping kids and families, along with individual adults, to heal their suffering as well as to support ever more conscious and happy self-understanding and relationships.

My training and experience with Transpersonal Psychology, the psychology of the consciousness greater than (though inclusive of) the personal self, led me to become part of The Spiritual Emergence Network, and to work with individuals who may be experiencing what has come to be called a transpersonal/spiritual emergence.  While this area of psychotherapy is still newly emerging, nonetheless people have been experiencing such openings of consciousness for millennia.  Newly forming consensuses as to what is occurring in the mind—individual and transpersonal—and how to support that extraordinary, and often challenging, process, are the core understandings of what has come to be called ‘spiritual emergence.’ This is a realm that is familiar to me, and in which I am comfortable in supporting those experiencing these challenging, and potentially extraordinarily growthful, states.