During more than 25 years of clinical work experience, I have performed psychotherapy, psychological assessments, and case management duties for several agencies and in a school setting, and have amassed a range of experience with which to assist my clients. I have worked with adults, adolescents, and families from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

 

In addition to my private practice, I currently serve as Vice President of Programs for Hope Solutions.

www.hopesolutions.org

 

From 2013-2015, I was a clinician, I developed an intern program and I supervised intern therapists at The Well Clinic in San Francisco.

www.wellsanfrancisco.com

 

From 2010-2013, I provided direct clinical support to formerly homeless families at Hope Solutions, where I also supervised intern therapists.

www.hopesolutions.org

 

From 2005-2011, I created and managed a mental health program at the former Marin AIDS Project which served people with HIV/AIDS and others affected by these diseases.

I completed an intensive training with The Metta Institute's End of Life Care Practitioner Program to work with people who are critically ill and in the process of dying. www.mettainstitute.org

Therapeutic Style:

Having worked in the field of mental health since 1996, I have acquired training and experience to work with chronic and critical illness, grief, trauma and PTSD, mood disorders, anxiety, LGBT concerns as well as issues for individuals who identify as queer or are questioning, couples counseling and alternative family issues, as well as addiction and recovery. I operate from Somatic/Mindfulness, Object Relations, and Cognitive-Behavioral orientations, depending on your needs. I also have provided clinical supervision to trainee and intern psychotherapists since 2005.

 

When we work together, my primary goal is for you to have safe space to examine issues, problems, or areas in your life you hope to change. I help you pay attention to your internal dialogues and stories about yourself that affect your thoughts, feelings, and behavior in daily life. I use techniques from insight meditation and Somatic Psychology to help you improve your connection to feeling states and intuition which can arise from within your body, and which can have a tremendous impact on your healing. I can also work with you to examine early and pivotal relationships you have had, so you learn to see and shift patterns of communication and behavior in your current romantic, work, family, or other relationships.

 

Together, we can create a plan to learn from your strengths while supporting lasting changes in your life.

The following is a brief list of books I and my clients have found helpful:

End of Life/Grief:

Pauline W. Chen: Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality

Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking

Scott Eberle: The Final Crossing: Learning to Die in Order to Live

Andrew Holleran: Grief

Stephen Levine: Meetings At The Edge: Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed

Christine Longaker: Facing Death & Finding Hope

David Rieff: Swimming In A Sea Of Death

 

Mindfulness:

Angeles Arrien: The Four-Fold Way

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana: Mindfulness In Plain English

Jon Kabat-Zinn: Full Catastrophe Living

Jack Kornfield: A Path With Heart

David Kundtz: Quiet Mind: One Minute Retreats from a Busy World

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

Hurricane

 

It didn’t behave

like anything you had

ever imagined. The wind

tore at the trees, the rain

fell for days slant and hard.

The back of the hand

to everything. I watched

the trees bow and their leaves fall

and crawl back into the earth.

As though, that was that.

This was one hurricane

I lived through, the other one

was of a different sort, and

lasted longer. Then

I felt my own leaves giving up and

falling. The back of the hand to

everything. But listen now to what happened

to the actual trees;

toward the end of that summer they

pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.

It was the wrong season, yes,

but they couldn’t stop. They

looked like telephone poles and didn’t

care. And after the leaves came

blossoms. For some things

there are no wrong seasons.

Which is what I dream of for me.

 

-Mary Oliver