Brief Professional Bio
My early clinical work (2001 – 2007) centered on the treatment of underserved adolescents/young adults in inpatient, residential, outpatient, school-based, and home settings in culturally diverse, urban cities across the country, including Memphis, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, Boston, Massachusetts; and Los Angeles, California.
In 2008, I became licensed as an MFT in California. I began working with the UCLA-Santa Monica Medical Center’s Rape Treatment Center, where I offered crisis intervention, group therapy, bystander intervention and sexual violence prevention education for children and adults until 2017.
Given my education, training, and professional experience supporting those who have experienced child sexual abuse, bullying, peer sexual harassment, and other forms of sex-or-gender-based violence, my therapy approach is firmly grounded in Feminist Theory. I stand with feminist scholar Dr. Gail Dines in viewing internet pornography as a significant “public health crisis.” I support Culture Reframed, Dines’ organization that helps adults guide youth growing up in a “pornified culture” to learn about healthy sexuality, intimacy, and relationships. I hold the pornography/sex industry responsible for grossly eroticizing sexual violence and perpetuating the global escalation of sexual harm to girls and women.
I maintain a full-time online private practice and provide clinical consultation for licensed providers.
Brief Personal Bio
During my early adolescence, I was treated for eating disorders, substance addictions, and chronic major depression/anxiety. Most of my young adulthood was colored by big, overwhelming emotions and confusing relational dynamics. The secure relationship I formed with my therapist during those years helped me survive that time – and enabled me to feel “safe enough” to reach out for professional help again and again, throughout my life. It was also the catalyst for my life-long interest in psychology and my pursuit of training in the art and science of psychotherapy.
At 43 years old, in the process of seeking professional consultation about the differential diagnosis of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress and Autism, I discovered my own identity as a neuro-different, Autistic/ADHD woman. This awakening expanded my clinical focus on the female autistic experience and ways to support the fostering of a positive autistic identity. I am a solidly neuro-affirmative autistic clinician and see autism as a neurotype, NOT as a disorder.
I have a specific interest in providing consultation for trauma and addiction professionals working with women with complex histories of relational trauma, PTSD, and addictive challenges to better recognize patterns common in neuro-distinct women and assess for a possible long-standing, missed ADHD or Autism diagnosis.
I find a lot of joy in exploring other people’s special interests and in devoting time to the pursuit of my own. Generally, when not researching something fascinating, I’m outside exploring the natural world in places where there are still more trees than people and you can hear the wind and birds rather than traffic. I am an avid reader of sci-fi, magical realism, speculative fiction, and female authors. I create cut-paper-collages depicting my own variation of fantastical worlds.
