About

I graduated from University of Notre Dame with an MA in counseling and from University of Tennessee in 1996 with an MSSW. I passed my boards and was licensed in 1999. Since then I have worked in many settings including: college campuses, teaching and counseling university students; private practice since 2001, with children and adults; the school system, counseling with individuals and groups, parents and children; mental health clinics, working with abuse and addiction; industry with workers and stress management; and adjunct graduate school teaching. I was working hard as a single parent after losing my husband to cancer in 2001. That’s when EMDR entered my life and I was helped by a colleague, who was on the board of Nashville Psychotherapy Institute with me. I could not eat or sleep and needed help with my grief. She spent many months doing EMDR with me and then I went for training, because it actually worked. I now practice EMDR online for trauma, anxiety and grief. It is a meditative practice that brings spaciousness to issues that are painful and repetitive. Meditation and yoga are daily practices for me and I got certified as a yoga teacher with my daughter in 2010. I am now an avid practitioner with yoga as an important part of my daily routine. I also practice NVC or non-violent communication, and have trained with specialists in this area. NVC has brought a spiritual element to my practice that is less about the stories we tell ourselves and more about what our heart’s long for. We stay present with the beauty of our needs and less with the story. We find what is alive in us somatically. I believe in neuroplasticity, our ability to change our stories. Change occurs when we examine our thoughts and the resulting stories we tell ourselves. We get deeply into bringing ourselves present into a different awareness