Growth based in the relational and scientific.

As a writer, a teacher, an education researcher, I was drawn to psychology while working with children and parents struggling with educational challenges. Now a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Los Angeles area, I draw on decades of knowledge, experience and research, both clinical and personal.

I love talk therapy - existential, personal, philosophical, spiritual, practical conversations. In addition, as a scientifically oriented practitioner, I use a specialized combination of somatic approaches that harness, your brain, your neurology, your muscle memory, and your physiological experiences to permanently anchor adaptability, love, warmth, creativity, strength and resiliency.

Please take advantage of the information and resources on this site. Also, feel free to contact me, free of charge, if you have any questions about me, my approach,  and our potential work together.

One of my goals is to de-mystify our work and to offer hope based on easily observed, easily practiced skills that you can enjoy for the rest of your life. I continue to be excited about new knowledge around depression, post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety that gives us reliable scientific leverage in addition to talk therapy.  Hope is important, but I want you to succeed even if you're unable to feel hopeful. The following is a short definition of trauma and two of the most effective methods I use in counseling.

About Trauma

Trauma results when someone’s nervous system is overwhelmed so completely that their nervous system defaults to danger mode 24 hours a day (PTSD). This burns an enormous amount of energy, cuts people off from their friends, family and their own experiences while creating racing thoughts, sleeplessness, and crashes into exhaustion and depression. Two of the most effective treatments to eliminate this suffering are Attachment Focused EMDR and the Trauma Resiliency Model.

Attachment Focused EMDR harnesses your brain's innate ability to process experiences and memory in an adaptive manner by imitating rapid eye movements or some other form of bilateral stimulation coupled with a rigorous practice of resourcing (BLS strengthened images and narratives) and bringing those resources to the traumatized memory network.

The Trauma Resiliency Model also harnesses the brain and body’s innate ability to heal and dump painful emotional charges by enabling someone to create a profound connection to their bodily, lived experience while internalizing images, memories, resources to which the body responds with calm, health and resiliency.

Your brain and body - your nervous system - have evolved to successfully resolve intense, painful experiences. This is your inalienable inheritance as a human being. You only need the skills and therapeutic space to elicit that healing.