I offer psychotherapy for children, adolescents, and adults with depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, chronic pain, and addiction. I work with couples and families who have relationship problems, including divorce and blended families. I offer Jungian psychotherapy for those who want to deepen their relationships, careers, creativity and spirituality.
I am a licensed psychologist with 20 years of experience practicing psychotherapy with adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families. I have a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of St.Thomas in Minneapolis, MN, with a specialty in family psychology. Before I became a psychologist, I worked with children, adolescents, and families as a teacher, counselor, and parent educator. I have developed and implemented resiliency-based social skills and behavior management training programs in schools, treatment centers, and community-based mental health programs.
Philosophy
My approach is a blend of humanistic, relational, and depth psychotherapy. I focus on people’s strengths and talents, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, in order that they may become more truly themselves. I believe that everyone can find and live their inner truth which is always special and unique.
Together, we work with feelings, intuitions, fantasies, and dreams. We explore both outer relationships with significant others and inner relationships with ourselves. We find unexpected and meaningful connections, and this leads us to feelings of love, harmony and peace.
Work with Families
Parenting is satisfying, challenging, and deeply meaningful. While it’s fun to be a parent, there are difficult questions to answer, and hard decisions to be made.
How can we give our children what they need without indulging them? Should we be more protective, or should we give our child more freedom? What should we do when we disagree with our partner about parenting issues? How can we make sure our children are safe when using the internet, video games, movies, and music? How do we help our children develop healthy friendships and resist unhealthy peer pressure? When should we find our own solutions, and when should we seek professional help?
Parents are the experts on their children. As a family psychologist, I work collaboratively with parents to discover answers to parenting questions and solutions to parenting problems. I promote healthy families by helping parents:
Raise strong and resilient children.
Encourage enthusiasm and creativity
Create and sustain a nurturing family culture
Teach children self-discipline
Use effective strategies to manage behavior problems.
Empower children to have positive social skills
Keep children safe in a challenging world
Cope with stress, conflict, and family relationship problems
Work cooperatively with schools to facilitate optimal learning.
Help children develop positive peer relationships
My work focuses on helping individuals and families develop strong, supportive, caring relationships and creative approaches to problems and challenges.
Alcoholism and drug addiction
I offer psychotherapy for individuals, couples and families with alcoholism and drug addiction. I also have therapy groups for people in recovery, and for people who have parents with alcoholism and drug addiction.
People with alcoholism and addiction work hard to develop and maintain their sobriety. Many have a long-term involvement in 12-Step programs.
After their sobriety has been established, they often discover that they have other problems that they didn’t notice when they were living in their addiction. When working with depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief, it is important to have a therapist who understands the recovery process. To be healthy, these issues must be addressed. In my work with people with addiction, I have found that it’s important for my clients to develop new relationships and a meaningful lifestyle that expresses their talents, abilities, creativity, and inner wisdom.
Within us is the soul of the whole: The wise silence, The universal beauty to which every part and particle is equally related. When it breaks through our intellect, It is genius. When it breathes through our will, It is virtue. When it flows through our affections, It is love.
