About

I am an Oregon Licensed Clinical Social Worker, (LCSW). I am credentialed in addictions--CADC I, and I am also credentialed in MRT, a reality therapy which has been proven to be particularly effective in correctional institutions.
I obtained my Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from Hawaii Pacific College in Honolulu. I graduated with my Master of Social Work degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1989.
Living and working in Hawaii and having attended the School of Social Work where all of our classes had an emphasis on cultural awareness, grew my appreciation for cultural differences.
My goal through the years in the field of mental health has been to become versatile in working with all genders of all ages, cultures and religious beliefs. My general approach is psychoeducational. I do CBT. I am Adlerian in premise.
For the past seven years, my work has been in crisis intervention which means I have dealt with an array of clinical presentations such as suicidality, homicidality, psychosis, chronic mental illness, intoxication, and emotion dysregulation, in an array of locations such as emergency rooms, intensive care units, jails, police stations, offices, schools, respite facilities, residential facilities, homes, truck stops, businesses, fields, roads, and other public places.
Prior to crisis work, I worked as an outpatient therapist in a community mental health agency and prior to that I worked as a dual-diagnosis therapist in a methadone clinic where I did trauma treatment and addictions counseling. I am fully trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a brain stimulation technique for trauma treatment and anxiety.
During the first 13 years of my career, I did contract work as a child and family therapist, adoption social work, and I also had a private practice wherein I did individual therapy and couples' counseling.