Brief Professional Bio
My early, pre-licensure 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 earned my licensure as an MFT in California and spent the next decade working with the UCLA-Santa Monica Medical Center’s Rape Treatment Center, where I provided sexual violence prevention education for children and adults and crisis intervention for sexual abuse victims.
Given my education, training, and professional experience supporting those who have experienced child sexual abuse, bullying, peer sexual harassment, and other forms of sex and/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” and 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.
In 2022, I became interested in the differential diagnosis of autism and complex post-traumatic stress and had a major “neuro-awakening” with the realization that I am a late- in-life-identified autistic/ADHDer. This has greatly shifted my clinical focus and I particularly enjoy working with other women interested in learning more about their own neurotype.
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 learn to better recognize and assess for possible missed ADHD or Autism diagnoses.
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 currently 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 fiction and non-fiction, with a preference for magical realism. I enjoy creating cut-paper-collages depicting my own variation of fantastical worlds.
