I’d like to tell you a bit about my professional and personal background, so you can have a better sense of who I am and if I'’m someone you'd like to work with.

​

My journey to becoming a psychotherapist has been untraditional. Psychotherapy, Self-Healing, and Emotional Intelligence were not words in my family’s lexicon. As a kid growing up in New York City, I learned to “stuff” sadness and loneliness—only for these emotions to get displaced as anger and dysregulation. I studied philosophy at the University of Chicago in an effort to find “the Answer” to my confusion regarding the world and my place in it. My search for this elusive answer continued into my twenties—albeit in a different direction. For several years, I traveled around the US and lived on an old hippie commune in Northern California.

​

In 2015, I moved to Tuscaloosa to attend a graduate program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. The various demons I'd sought to run away from caught up with me and eventually I was forced to face my inner world.  It was here, in Tuscaloosa, that I learned to stop seeking outside myself to find answers to my internal fear, and to turn towards myself, with patience and with grace. Here, I learned how life-changing—and life-saving—good psychotherapy is. As I grew more comfortable with myself, I began to realize the truth in the poet Rilke’s words: have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

 

After completing my MFA in Creative Writing, I entered UA’s Graduate School of Social Work with the goal of becoming a psychotherapist. I wanted to share the power of psychotherapy with others. During my two-year program, I had one baby and became pregnant with another! Today, I am blessed to have found a true home in Tuscaloosa with my husband, two children, three cats, one tripawd mutt, and many friends.

 

I developed my psychotherapy skills while working in inpatient settings for people with serious mental illness and for people with substance use disorders. In my private practice, I work with a wide range of needs. I have worked with people struggling with addiction, trauma, self-esteem, grief, attachment issues, identity issues, diagnoses of Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, serious mental illness (major depressive disorder and schizophrenia), depression, and anxiety. I have a deep respect and compassion for people in all their messiness and beauty. 

​

I love learning, and use my practice as an opportunity to continue my education. It's rare that I am not in some kind of training! My therapeutic trainings and certifications include: EMDR, Internal Family Systems (Level 1), Somatic Integration and Reprocessing, Trauma, Grief Recovery, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents and Families, and Relational Life Therapy (Level 1). I am currently enrolled in consultation for IFS with Steve Krantz, a Lead Trainer with the Internal Family Systems Institute, and with Orah Krug, a master clinician in Existential Humanistic psychotherapy. 

​

I work best with people who are interested not only in symptom management but want to dig deep in self-exploration. (IMO, honest self-exploration can be the best symptom management.) In addition to adults, I see college, high school, and middle school students. I have found that the "weird", "artsy", and "rebellious" teens and I often connect. 

​

​

Thank you for hearing my story. Now, let’s listen for yours.