“It is my central mission to help others heal themselves, teach them to develop a healing relationship with their bodies, and ground themselves in the truth that we already have everything we need inside of ourselves to live healthy and productive lives.”

My Work
I’ve been in private practice for 13 years helping my clients with a wide range of issues including PTSD, trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction, and more.

Our childhood and how our caregivers have parented us shape our perceptions and reactions to life. If this foundation has been ruptured in some way, we may need a little extra help in creating a strong foundation.

The approach I use is grounded in a psychodynamic perspective that looks at our early childhood experiences. Most therapists understand that our childhood relationships affect the way we see the world and form relationships with others. The kinds of attachments we form as children affect our world view, influence how we think, and also how we bond with others.

I have found that no matter the background and life experience, almost everyone shares the common need to feel seen and witnessed in their lives and to be able to form healthy relationships.

The work I do helps to release the past and focus on a present and a future where people feel safe to both trust and be vulnerable in their lives.

My Approach
In addition to working from a psychodynamic perspective, I am also certified as a master practitioner in Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT). ETT is a modality that uses light and color to facilitate the release and resolution of distressing emotions at a more rapid rate than typical talk therapy models.

I am also a certified facilitator of The Resilience Toolkit and a certified teacher of Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises. Both methods use a therapeutic tremoring modality that offer a somatic, non-verbal release to treat deep tension and stress stored in the body. They are excellent methods to work with stress and deep-seated trauma, because therapeutic tremoring does not require a verbal intervention to facilitate immediate relief.

I use all of these modalities, in addition to mindfulness to work with my clients to assist them to improve their relationship to themselves, as well as their relationship to the world around them. For more information on each modality, please see the Service tabs below.

My Experience
The roots of my work have always been in social work, public health, and social justice. I have a master’s in science in social work and a master’s in public health from Columbia University.

In the earliest part of my career I entered the Peace Corps and taught in a very remote village in Thailand. Through the experience of being completely alone in a culture that at the time felt very strange, I learned much about the importance of communicating through the heart rather than exclusively from the mind. Because I could not speak the language when I first arrived, I had to learn how to communicate non-verbally and through what we now refer to as heart-connection. This had a foundational impact on the work I do now.

In my early years in Los Angeles, I worked in a residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed children as well as in the public school systems in Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley. These experiences helped me to further develop my expertise in understanding family dynamics, community trauma, and the influence they have on our worldview, especially in disenfranchised populations.

Through my experience currently working as a Director of Outpatient Services in south Los Angeles, as well as extensive experience in working with children and families, I came to understand the importance of repairing the neural connections in the brain that are impacted by early childhood trauma.

People who are affected by multiple and complex traumas, are trying to make sense of the world, and the practices I use help people to access the truth of themselves in a complex world.