Biography

I was born in Pasadena, the city of roses. Ever since the age of five I have been gardening, growing flowers, caring for plants, and I still spend time tending my garden every day. The love of flowers widened to include an interest in native plants. I garden to connect with perennial aspects of human connection to nature.

California is my home. Even when I lived elsewhere and especially when I travel, I was aware that I need the coastal mountains, the Sierras, the Pacific shoreline, the Madrones, the Redwoods to thrive.

I am licensed in the state of California as a Marriage Family Therapist. I hold a Masters of Arts from Saint Mary's College of California and a Bachelors of Arts from University of California at Berkeley.

My experience doing psychodynamic therapy with adults, adolescents, children, toddlers, families, couples, sibling pairs and therapy groups spans over 15 years. As a Certified Domestic Violence Counselor, I have worked on crises phone lines and met at-risk women and children at safe houses and hospitals. I have led groups for women living in shelters and transitional housing, and I have taught anger management classes for court-mandated violent offenders. In addition, I created two different group treatment programs for children; one was for children at domestic violence transitional housing and the second was for abused and highly traumatized children who suffered dissimilar but all acute trauma.

I have worked with children who suffered from severe physical abuse and neglect. In these cases, I worked not only with the children but also with the parents, CPS social workers, lawyers, and representatives of the District Attorney's office.

Additionally, I had five years' experience doing Rosen Method Therapeutic Bodywork, a psychosomatic process based on the work of C. G. Jung and the Breath Therapies developed in Germany in the early 1940's. Through this work, I saw first-hand how traumatic memories are stored in the body and how this can lead to dissociation and diminished aliveness and awareness. I am currently working for Kaiser on the Northern California crises line.

I have created art and stories since I was a young child. My formal training in Philosophy and Practice of Art at UC Berkeley influences my work with my clients. I encourage my child and teen clients to explore visual and tactile means of discovering and communicating. As with my adult clients, I assist them in finding words to express their awareness and help them recognize their ability to imagine and to be rational.