About

Something in your life has led you to search for a resource to help you find the answers and develop the skills to alleviate your distress. My style is warm, real, and practical. I embrace humor and honesty in therapy. I balance helping you gain a greater understanding of yourself with taking action, supporting your every step. I strive to provide the best services possible by helping you to feel deeply understood by considering all the aspects of your unique story. I use therapeutic techniques to work with individuals, couples, and families that have been shown by research to be effective. The framework that I use is ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). One of the main goals of ACT stated by Dr. S. Hayes is “changing our relationship to our thoughts and emotions, rather than changing their content, is the key to healing and realizing our true potential. People become identified with the content of their mental life to a large extent by fusion, evaluation, avoidance, and reason giving.” Dr. Liz Stanley succinctly states a working model for me – “access choice in all life situations, and align our actions to our intentions and values”. For the past seven years I have worked as a Military & Family Life Counselor providing non-medical counseling, psychoeducation and coaching to service members and their dependents. For the past four years I have worked in Africa, Poland, Germany and England providing services to deployed military personnel. My life is full of experiences that inform my work as a therapist – my father’s death when I six years old, a blended family, divorce, and now almost 30 years into a marriage with a wonderful partner. I started working as a marriage and family therapist in 1976 but left the profession and spent twenty years in international business development. I returned to the profession about nine years ago. It’s such an honor to explore and guide another as we sort through their lives seeking relief and direction.