About Me

What a journey it has been to get to phase three of my professional pathway to private practice. I bring with me over 35 years of work with children, teens, adults, and families in the mental health field. I completed my masters and doctorate in clinical psychology at University of Missouri-Columbia, and my postdoctoral training was through a consortium of child and adult psychiatric and forensic hospitals in St. Louis.

Phase one of my career as a psychologist was at University of Missouri-St. Louis where I was an adjunct professor and the director of Greater St. Louis Child Traumatic Stress Program, a National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) site. There, our team developed, implemented, and disseminated cutting-edge child trauma services. This part of my professional journey came to an end when we adopted our youngest child and moved to Portland as a family.

I yearned to learn more as both a therapist and as a parent about how to help children heal from early adversity and trust in the security of parent-child attachment. I immersed myself in further training and brought my new tool belt into phase two of my professional journey. I served as President of the Board of Adoption Mosaic, and I then focused on the professional niche of parent-child attachment and child trauma in my work with biological, foster, and adoptive families. I spent 18 wonderful years at Children’s Program overseeing their trauma and attachment-focused clinical services and providing outpatient therapy to countless families.

After many rewarding years of serving children and families at large clinics, it was time to hang my own shingle out. At this point in my career, my focus is on individual therapy with adults, family therapy, and trauma-informed coaching with parents and caregivers.

I bring with me training and extensive experience including the intervention models of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Eye Movement Desentization Reprocessing (EMDR), and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). I am a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner, and I love coaching parents and caregivers in learning to see and meet the needs under a child’s trauma-based behaviors. Our kids need both structure and nurture, and I help parents find the “sweet spot” on that continuum.

I’m a firm believer that the magic of therapy is all about the fit. So, I think it’s important to provide a flavor of me as a person. Anyone who has worked with me will vouch for the fact that I show up fully and am highly committed to my therapy work. Although it is important to be able to draw from evidence-based practices, I believe that change and healing happen when I show up with warmth, empathy, authenticity, and humility. I maintain professional boundaries, but I also bring my real self and can be playful in my interpersonal approach when appropriate.

This is your journey, and my role is to empower you and to be your “side-kick” along the way. It is my job to help you feel solid in your values, not for me to impose my values upon you. If therapy were as simple as my telling a client what changes they needed to make, then nobody would ever need more than a couple of sessions. Therapy is about you finding your way to the change and healing that you want in your life.

On a personal note, I love reading, doing craft projects, paddle boarding, camping, and hiking. I’ve been working on writing my own fiction book for more than seven years, and someday I might just finish it. Racial and social justice issues are very important to me. I’m adjusting to this phase of life where my three adult kiddos are launched. My husband and I are now focusing on fixing up our tiny conversion camper and training our naughty but loveable pandemic dog. Of course, we are also coming to learn that you never really stop parenting, even when your baby birds have taken flight.