About

I help people struggling with stressors experience and exert more power over their lives.

Stress can manifest in our lives as depression, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and difficulty coping. Sometimes that can turn into addiction, overeating, dysfunctional behavioral, relationship problems, or simply poor self-care. I love to explore the roots of these stressors through biopsychosocial assessment, developing insight and self-awareness, collaboratively creating a treatment plan, identifying achievable short-term goals, and developing practical coping and self-care techniques. My goal is to help you cultivate a more authentic, purposeful, balanced, and functional life. You deserve to feel better.

Your relationship with your therapist is one of the most important elements in predicting your success with achieving your therapy goals. Sometimes people can be nervous if they don't know what to expect or if they didn't have the best experience in the past. That's okay and totally normal. Even if you have done therapy before, I want to remind you as a therapist my job is to guide you through this process in a totally non-judgmental, patient-focused, and sometimes humorous way. I’ve been told my style is straight-forward, warm, problem solving, and solution focused.

I have worked in mental health care for over 20 years. I have earned my Master of Social Work (MSW) from Arizona State University and my Bachelor Degree from The University of Arizona. I am independently licensed as a Clinical Social Worker in the state of Arizona. I have worked in a wide range of therapeutic settings including inpatient psychiatric hospitalization, residential treatment, and outpatient care with varying clientele affected by serious mental illness, mood disorders, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, substance use disorders, and trauma histories. I am particularly well versed with understanding generational trauma, chemical dependency and codependency issues, and how mood disorders can affect our ability to be effective in our lives.

More personally, I am a consummate patient advocate and am passionate about human rights. I believe everyone should have access to affordable and quality mental healthcare. I support organizations addressing mental health stigma and access issues across all genders, ethnicities, cultures, and sexual orientations. I love living in Arizona, going out to eat, decorating, watching YouTube videos about home improvement, and petting my little dog, Mila Kunis.