Practice Description

Individual Clients
Over my 35+ years in the field, I have been searching for what modality of therapy will best serve those seeking mental health services.
What I have found, and psychotherapeutic research has proved, is the therapist is the key change ingredient in most successful therapy.  Therapy can provide a space where a person is listened, felt and experienced at such a concentrated level of sharing with emphasis on every aspect of communication.

I believe the qualities of an ideal therapist is one who can listen intensely, be nonjudgmental, ego subordinate and unconditionally present.  The therapist demonstrates and models how to struggle against seemingly destructive personality habits and how to live more open and less defensively.

 The therapist presenting as an authentic person that clients can feel comfortable enough with to be open and self-revealing will be key to an optimal therapeutic relationship.
 
                       “Effective therapists do not attempt to fit their clients into a particular theoretical model; instead, they try to learn from
                        them and in effect, gradually develop a uniquely personal psychological theory for each individual.” -Robert Firestone, PhD

In other words, the client is the “expert” concerning their lives.  This expertise may be unconscious.  Through therapy with an open and self-aware therapist, the process becomes a journey of helping the client, within the therapeutic relationship, to be more conscious, therefore empowered to pursue a healthier lifestyle.  This requires a therapist to interact in the relationship not only intellectually, but also intuitively.
This also requires the therapist to be committed to their ongoing mental health introspection known as deep internal work of their own.  To be able to “do the work” the therapist must “get the work”.

New Therapist Supervision & Experienced Therapist Consultation
I am expanding my practice to include supervision services for new therapists and consultations for more experienced therapists.  By exploring our own inner processes, we can be more present to our clients.  My emphasis in this work focuses on aspects of the therapeutic relationship where the therapist may be questioning and reviewing their own self-care commitment.
I use elements of somatoemotional release, psychodynamic and feminist psychotherapies to help inform the work that is done, but primarily the client is the therapy and present moment focus is always in the forefront of the therapeutic process.
 
Work Experiences

• Supervision of LLPC and other counseling therapists
• Private Practice Contractor and Consultant through Professional Psychotherapy Services LLC
• Clinical Director at an Inpatient Psychiatric Hospital
• Intake Coordinator for a hospital based Psychiatric Treatment Unit
• Somatoemotional Release Therapist and Educator

           » Upledger Institute
           » Integrative Intentions
           » Russian Doctor Exchange Program
           » Private Practice

• Psychosocial Evaluation Consultant – Hospital based Substance Abuse Inpatient Unit
• University Counseling Center Therapist – Individual and Group Therapy
• In House Supervisor for Residential Program for Pregnant Teens
• Community Mental Health Services

           » Individual and Group Therapist
           » Inservice Educator

• State Hospital Behavioral Therapist for Chronic Developmentally Disabled Population