My Focus and Experience

My counseling style is warm and welcoming. Clients usually feel very comfortable working with me in a short period of time. I specialize in helping people work with fear and anxiety, trauma, grief and loss, illness, shame and guilt, overdoing, and depression. My approach is gentle, using talk therapy, mindfulness, and body awareness with an emphasis on self-care to help you connect with your feelings and internal healing resources. I believe that developing an attitude of kindness towards oneself and one's experience is the basis for healing and empowerment.

Research shows that the relationship between therapist and client is a very important factor in clients feeling better. It is my intention for you to feel safe and unconditionally supported in our counseling relationship.

I am a psychotherapist in private practice in Clearwater, Florida. I have a Masters of Arts degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky. I have taught university level classes in Contemplative Psychotherapy and Sociology.

I have received both levels of post-degree training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which is a therapeutic technique that integrates several different types of psychotherapies and uses dual attention stimulation primarily to help people heal from traumatic experiences. The resourcing aspect of EMDR helps strengthen your positive qualities and feelings and can enhance the experiences of confidence, joy, and ease in your life. In addition, I have completed the level-one Internal Family Systems (IFS) year-long training, which focuses on working with the different parts of oneself or with different aspects of your experience, in order to heal from relational and other trauma. I also have a certificate in Pet Bereavement Counseling from the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement (APLB). During the training for this certificate I studied with Dr. Wallace Sife, the leading authority on pet loss worldwide and author of The Loss of a Pet: A Guide to Coping with the Grieving Process when a Pet Dies (Howell Book House, 2005). I am a member of The American Counseling Association (ACA) and the APLB.