Licensed Marriage Family Therapist and credentialed School Counselor with 25+ years of clinical and school experiences. In my early 20's, after almost a full decade of bad choices, questionable decisions and serious consequences, I finally surrendered those risky behaviors and completely overhauled my lifestyle and value system. Since that time, I've dedicated myself to helping individuals and families to live intentionally while navigating tumultuous and tricky life transitions that appear necessary in the human experience.

About Me

Stimulus and response were part of my life.
I had an introduction to this space between stimulus and choosing a response. It happened to me in my early 20s when I got sober. By then, I had already blown up my life and faced severe consequences due to my risky behaviors, questionable decisions, and downright bad choices.

I didn’t ever set out to intentionally complicate my life, but I kept blowing through the proverbial stop sign with fingers crossed that I didn’t create much wreckage.

I noticed significant changes and experienced actual results in my life when I started paying attention. So profound was this personal power and recovery that I naïvely decided to dedicate myself to education and training to get some credentials behind my name.

In 1991, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from the University of Arizona and hit my addiction bottom around the same time. I graduated from Saint Louis University with a Masters in Counselor Education with a Clinical Marriage and Family Therapy specialization in 1997.

Detours are part of destinations
Aspiring therapists must have 3000 hours of training before applying for licensure, and in the 1990s, most intern placements were unpaid. Our first child arrived early in 1998, and I made the conscious choice, tapping into that superpower, to forfeit 1750 clinical training hours and set aside my career indefinitely to prioritize the needs of our young family. Although the best choice, it was a hard choice.

By 2006, I did return to work in education. I earned my Pupil Personnel Services (PPS) Credential, allowing me to work as a clinician and counselor in public education. In 2014, I returned to my goal of MFT licensure and began again acquiring the necessary 3000 hours. When it was all said and done, and I received my license in 2018, I earned more than double the training experience required because my career took a big detour.

All along the way, I gained meaningful experience, including working in schools as a mental health clinician for emotionally disturbed students, as a school counselor at both continuation and comprehensive campuses, and as a social worker for foster care youth in group homes, case worker for foster families, and as a clinician in a group practice as well as a community clinic.

While interning, I completed a 52-hour training for EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and 100 hours of training in IFS (Internal Family Systems). I am a Level I-trained and approved EMDR clinician. I am currently Level II-trained and approved IFS therapist, and in the process of becoming an Certified IFS Practicioner.

I am in year two of a comprehensive three-year training program to become a certified SE (Somatic Experiencing) practitioner. I am in year three of a three-year cohort training in metaphysical energy practices and bodywork techniques to supplement my work in healing trauma

Specialty Areas

Career/Aptitude Assessment

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