Susan Rook-Thomas is licensed in the state of California as a Marriage Family Therapist. She holds a Masters of Arts from Saint Mary's College of California and a Bachelors of Arts from University of California at Berkeley.

Susan has over 14 years of experience doing psychodynamic therapy with adults, adolescents, children, toddlers, families, couples, sibling pairs and therapy groups. As a Certified Domestic Violence Counselor, she has worked on crises phone lines and met at-risk women and children at safe houses and hospitals. She has lead groups for women living in shelters and transitional housing, and she has taught anger management classes for court mandated violent offenders.

While it she hopes that your needs are not grave, Susan is experienced in facilitating hospitalization, consulting with psychiatrists, researching therapy settings for Intensive Outpatient or Residential treatment. She has worked in psychiatric crises settings to:

• assess for psychiatric crises such as bi-polar episodes, first schizophrenic breaks or life threatening situations
• deescalate panic attacks, suicidal ideation, rage and mania
• triage for emergent hospitalization, police "Health and Welfare" intervention or urgent mental health treatment
• determine appropriate level of treatment and make viable behavioral safety plan until treatment can begin
• coordinate with Child Protection Services
• appear in court with or for clients - not in child custody cases
• help the client and family normalize situation, respond more beneficially and re-gain perspective, hope, and peace
• help family participate in client's recovery.

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

Additionally, she had five years experience doing Rosen Method Therapeutic Bodywork, a psychosomatic process based on the work of C. G. Jung and the Breath Therapies developing in Germany in the early 1940's. Through this work, Susan saw first hand how traumatic memories are stored in the body and how this can lead to dissociation and diminished aliveness and awareness.

Susan has created art and stories since she was a young child. Her formal training in Philosophy and Practice of Art at UC Berkeley, influences her work with her clients. Susan encourages her child and teen clients to explore visual and tactile means of discovering and communicating. As with her adult clients, she assists them in finding verbal means to express and communicate their awareness and helps them recognize their ability to imagine and to be rational.