My path as a psychotherapist has been a substantial and windy one, which I value deeply. My pretherapist beginnings included working as a 2nd grade teacher, peer counselor and in suicide prevention. From there I worked as an intern in the schools with youth and teens, at a community mental health center with adults with serious mental illness, with foster children, youth and families and finally, now at my private practice with children, teens and adults of all ages. I am tremendously grateful for the work I do and for the wide array of experiences and encounters I have had.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist (License #46185), psychotherapist and counselor with an office located on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California, serving communities in Oakland, Berkeley and Piedmont. Currently, I am providing individual psychotherapy to children, teens and adults as well as expressive arts therapy trainings and supervision to other professionals. My graduate degree is in counseling psychology with an emphasis in the expressive arts which I received in 2002. Most recently, I completed two years of additional post graduate training in psychodynamic depth oriented psychotherapy at the Psychotherapy Institute in Berkeley, California so that I could become more adept at working longer term and more deeply with adult clients. Please download and read feel free to read the following article if you want to learn more about psychodynamic psychotherapy. Download The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
Finally, I feel it is important to mention that my own personal experiences inform my work (I am definitely human too!) and I am committed to stretching myself and growing alongside my clients. I have had my own meditation practice for the last 8 years and have gone on several residential retreats. At times I may bring in some components of this into the therapy related to mindfulness and the development of kindness and compassion, which I think none of us can ever get enough of. And finally, I as a lover of the arts and as someone who dances and writes, I value and cherish the creative process in our work together.