(Brief Bio)
I began working in the mental health field with adolescents and young adults during college and continued to focus on the treatment of this population for the next twenty years of my career, in a variety of cities and settings across the United States.
Licensed as an MFT in 2008, I began a small private practice and spent the next decade providing sexual violence prevention education and rape crisis services with the University of California Los Angeles -Santa Monica Medical Center’s renowned Rape Treatment Center. I relocated in 2018 to engage in yet another phase of my own personal/recovery work, sought additional training and certification in other trauma healing modalities, and focused on art making while listening for my “next right steps” to unfold.
Diagnosed with ADHD and Autism in my mid forties after decades treatment for other conditions, I’ve spent the past few years researching the ins and outs of the female experience of ADHD and Autism, including heightened risk for addictive disorders, chronic anxiety/depression, repeated sexual victimization, financial exploitation, and misdiagnosis with other conditions like borderline personality or bipolar disorder.
My colleague, Candice Christiansen, LMHC, CSAT-S, and I co-present on the topic of autistic women in sexual addiction and betrayal trauma recovery for the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals and had several rich conversations you can listen to on her podcast about our own experiences personally and clinically.
Together, we created a Neuro-Affirming Autism Screening Tool focused on recognizing and assessing for more “nuanced” (female) presentations of autism for the 2023 IITAP Symposium (link to download here: Resources, on Candice’s website, or in the chapter “Embodying IFS with Neurodivergent Clients: A Neuro-Inclusive Approach for Therapists,” authored by Candice Christiansen and Meg Martinez-Dettamanti and generously included as an addendum for Jenna Riemersma’s book, Altogether Us, pub. 2023).
I maintain a full time private practice online for adult women and also offer clinical consultation, coaching services, and women’s groups. I truly enjoy sharing information and resources, particularly about neurotypes, feminism, and polyvagal theory. For me, learning how to understand, interpret, and “befriend” my autnomic nervous system using polyvagal theory remains one of the more paradigm-shifting and “therapeutic” experiences of my life. While polyvagal concepts certainly may not work that way for everyone, it does tend to be part of the language I use, as I do see it as a (possible) way to develop a relationship with your nerouvs system as an “embodied wisdom source.”
In my free time, you’ll often find me engaged in feminist organizing work, playing with collage and mixed media abstract painting, exploring the woods with my dog, taking pictures of mushrooms, building moss gardens, listening to books written by women aross genre and time, or possibly dreaming/napping.
I am hoping to begin offering in-person therapy and art and nature-based intensives, retreats, and workshops for women in 2025.
Education/Training/Certifications:
BA in Psychology (2001). MA in Counseling Psychology (2004)
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, California, #45462 (2008). Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Oregon, #T2025 (2021).
Certified Sexual Assault Victim Counselor, California (2009).
iRest Yoga Nidra Teacher Training, Level One with Richard Miller (2017). Trauma-Informed Yoga with Hala Khouri and Kyra Heglund (2017)
Trauma-Informed Creative Expressive Arts Training, Level 1 and 2 with Cathy Malchiodi, Trauma-Informed Expressive Arts Institute (2018-2019). Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing with Cornelia Elbrecht, Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy (2020).
Completed six month training “Foundations of Polyvagal Theory in Clinical Practice,” with Deb Dana (2021). Post-Induction Therapy, with Sara Bridges, Meadows Behavioral Health (2021). Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals (2022). Completed Basic Training in Attachment Focused EMDR, with Laurel Parnell, Parnell Institute (2022).