Treatment based on expert training and personal experience

Experience has provided me with skills to work successfully with people with chronic depression and overwhelming emotional pain. My own battle with cancer gives me a valuable perspective.

My education includes:

• A Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Post-MSW coursework at the Washington (DC) School for Psychotherapy
• Intensive training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) completed in 2000
• Courses in advanced tools for working with the BPD population including most recently a one-week seminar in Advanced Skills for implementing DBT.
• Training in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) completed in 2006.
• Participation in retreat and seminars focused on strengthening those tools.  I am currently completing a course in Mindful Self-compassion at InsightLA.

Today, my practice is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a treatment that teaches you how to change your definition of your sadness or anger or fear.

Another way to describe this work is that you may see a glass with water and think the glass is half empty. Someone else may think the glass is  half full. Our work is to look at the glass and see it as a glass that simply has water in it.

In addition to working with individuals, I am an Associate Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California.