You can be assured that when you are in the room with me, all my years of training, hard-won experience, and keen intellectual curiosity will be focused on how to best help you reach your goals. You will feel the confidence and support of working with someone to implement changes that may have eluded you for some time.
My style is to be transparent, and by that I mean I will share my thinking process, including hypothesis with you, as we work together.
It is my belief, that you are the expert on you, and that I am the expert on finding and facilitating skills to make the positive changes you seek.
Mission
My goal is to catalyze change by engaging my expertise and compassion.
Personal
As a youngster, one winter I found my mothers’ old psychology textbook in our garage. I was fascinated by the idea that one could understand human behavior. Even in the depth of an Iowa winter, my breath puffing out in our unheated garage, I was absorbed by these theories. As a teen, I worked with a psychologist, and it was life changing. My fate was sealed, and from that moment on I single-mindedly focused on becoming a clinical psychologist.
Education & Training
Achieving my Bachelors degree with a Major in psychology from the University of Iowa, I gained experience at the University of Pennsylvania before starting graduate studies in New York City. During graduate school at the New School for Social Research, positions included research assistant for Dr. Herbert Schlesinger and Structured Clinical Interviewer for the Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University under Dr. Abby Fyer.
My one-year externship and my two-year internship at the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical College began my specialization in trauma and stress utilizing a CBT learning model perspective. As an Assistant Professor at Cornell Medical College I trained, and supervised staff on several NIMH funded, cutting edge interventions including Exposure therapy for Acute Stress Disorder and PTSD.
I also served as an Attending Physician on a regional Burn Unit at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital for over a decade, where I participated in case conferences, evaluation and assessment of patients, as well as supervising graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. My work on the Burn Center has made me an expert in acute medical crisis, work-place accidents, first responders who witnessed death,and destruction, acute and traumatic grief and chronic illness. A common denominator in this work was helping the patients find acceptance in their situation as it was in that moment.
I earned my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa.
I was awarded my Masters from the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research New York, NY.
I received my Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research. My dissertation was “Dissociative Symptomatology in Hospitalized Burn Patients.” Subjects were drawn from the William Randolph Hearst Burn Unit of New York Presbyterian Hospital.
I completed a two year postdoctoral fellowship at the Payne Whitney Clinic of New York Presbyterian Hospital, Cornell Medical College.
I completed a one year post graduate training at New York University’s International Traumatic Stress Studies Program.
I completed RYT 200 Yoga teacher training.
I completed EMDR training with Barb Maiberger in Boulder.
I completed the Yoga for 12 Step Recovery Relapse Prevention.
I completed the two year comprehensive Hakomi training at the Hakomi Institute in Boulder CO, and the advanced training in Majjorca, Spain.
My Practice
People from all walks of life with many stories sat with me in my office in the fifteen years I practiced in New York City. I was privileged to provide care for people devastated by the attacks on the World Trade Center for several years after 9-11. In 2005 after the South Pacific Tsunami, I went to Sri Lanka in order to train local counselors in the use of cognitive behavioral therapy for trauma. This was the realization of a professional goal to teach and participate in disaster relief in an international setting.
My move to Colorado in 2011 was motivated by my values to have an abundance of nature, easy access to outdoor exercise and a reasonable pace of life in which to raise my family. My personal and professional goals have coalesced to find me happily pursuing my private practice in historic Old Town. I have found the people I have worked with over the last decade in Fort Collins to be astoundingly unique, highly educated and to have so many key coping strategies already in place. This has made it so rewarding to help people look even more deeply inside themselves. I sincerely look forward to working with you on your goals.
Exciting new (ish) elements of my practice include somatic based therapies, such as EMDR, I have completed Hakomi training, and utilize yogic breathwork and asana practices within my therapeutic framework. For my clients, this means an expansion of tools for them to utilize in self care, and an abundance of methods for processing information (e.g. processing through multiple channels). In my experience, this has proven to deepen and clarify people’s experience in therapy.
Experience
I have been privileged to experience a rich and varied training and professional experiences throughout my career. My graduate level education took place in NYC, and the people I worked with were from all walks of life. Listed below are my professional positions held. In these positions I was honored to be a primary resource for first responders and individuals who were burned in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
I participated in several NIMH funded, cutting-edge interventions for individuals with post traumatic stress disorder and participated in training and supervising others on these interventions. My efforts were commended with a New York City Fire Fighters Burn Center award. My expertise in trauma was also utilized in the private sector, where I helped develop, train, staff and implement a screening and treatment program for utility workers exposed to the attacks and aftermath of 9-11.
As a trauma expert I was enabled to participate in an international training mission after the tsunami in 2004, by developing a training in CBT for indigenous counselors in Sri Lanka. This work then fostered several presentations and articles around international disaster work.
My clinical work is inspiring. Witnessing, and listening to people face adversity is an ever humbling and profoundly moving experience. I have invested in first rate training, and been an Assistant Professor in one of the leading university hospitals in our country. My level of expertise is senior, and you will feel this in your sessions.
I know that seeking help can be daunting, the one fact I can assure you of is that I am very competent, professional, and focused in my clinical interactions. Please see my full curriculum vitae for specific details, and do not hesitate to ask me any questions about my training or professional experiences.