About Me
I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 15 years experience in the counseling, human services and education fields. I specialize in individual, teen, couples and family therapy. I maintain a private practice in Soquel, California serving a broad spectrum of clients.
Education
I earned my Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA.License, Certifications
I am a Marriage & Family Therapist liscensed by the State of California Board of Behavioral Sciences. I am also a Certified Psychodrama Therapist and a Certified Domestic Violence Prevention Facilitator for Santa Cruz County.Additional Training
I have training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as Psychosynthesis work.Professional Activities and Memberships
I am a current member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. CAMFT is an independent professional organization representing marriage and family therapists. It is dedicated to advancing the profession as an art and a science, to maintaining high standards of professional ethics, and to upholding the qualifications for the profession. CAMFT Clinical Members have met the stringent education and training requirements that qualify them for Marriage and Family Therapist licensure. Membership in CAMFT indicates a Marriage and Family Therapist's dedication to their professional development. Members of CAMFT are expected to be familiar with and abide by the CAMFT Ethical Standards for Marriage and Family Therapists and by applicable California laws and regulations governing the conduct of licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, interns and trainees.
Therapy is a Process
Therapy is a process that helps us toward greater health and more peace. Process is defined as "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result." This is an excellent description of therapy. Because we are social by nature, it is natural that we recover from stress and trauma better if we work through it with another person than if we isolate ourselves in hurt. Sometimes that process can be a simple reframe, but more often change is gradual. While we set out goals at the start of therapy to help us work together toward a particular result, they can change in the course of the gradual process. Hopefully we at least produce relief of symptoms, but often we uncover more of you, and more meaning in your life than you had thought possible.
I view the therapeutic relationship as a partnership in which we journey together to bring about the change you want in your life. The trusted therapeutic relationship we create provides a "safe, protected space", the container in which vulnerable issues and intense emotions can be accessed and processed. My approach to therapy is personalized to each client, integrating multiple complimentary methodologies and techniques. The central theme is my belief in each client and their ability to change, building upon their strengths, and helping them identify and achieve the goals that are important to them. I strive to create a healing environment, a place where you can learn about negative behavioral patterns that have kept you stuck, and a place to practice new ways of thinking and behaving.
Certified Process-oriented Psychodrama Therapist
The Process Model has been created over the past 30 years by Arnie Mindel and has been taught to hundreds of licensed and pre-licensed therapists at various universities in the Bay Area. I trained with Virginia Dennehy at ITP and with Harris Clemes at ITP and independently for six years. The basic perspective of the Process Model is that all people are looking for a sense of fulfillment in their lives. When they are experiencing this well-being, they are allowing their life energy to flow easily and without resistance. However, when negative events happen and we begin to perceive that we are not safe or broken, we begin to constrict this flow of well-being. The Process Model of therapy helps people identify their constrictions and release them, allowing their life energy flow to increase, which increases their experience of ease and fulfillment in their lives.
Process-oriented Psychodrama is experiential in nature. This means that participants learn about themselves and others by participating in activities that invite and allow them to experience themselves in new ways.
The focus of psychodrama involves allowing the client to experience what is really happening inside them without distraction. Psychodrama is a powerful and effective therapeutic approach that has an incredible impact on individuals, youth, families, and groups. Process oriented Psychodrama addresses a variety of mental health and human development needs including behavioral issues.