Background

I’m a clinical psychologist who provides psychotherapy.

While earning my B.S. in Environmental Sciences at CSU, Monterey Bay I began working with farmworkers in the Salinas Valley in a program that helped people become independent, organic farmers. While I loved the environmental side of things, it was the human connection that resonated most with me, leading me to volunteer in the Peace Corps in Zambia. On my return I worked with low-income and diverse adults in job training programs, in outreach, and in drug rehabilitation. In 2009, I began working as a therapist and earning my doctorate in Clinical Psychology (PsyD). Since then I’ve worked in the schools, in community clinics with adults and children, and provided therapy to seniors who could no longer leave their homes. I currently have my own full time private practice where I provide therapy to teens and adults and offer supervision to training psychologists and early career clinicians.

I have an ongoing interest in psychodynamic psychotherapy. To this end I regularly engage in consultation, and I supervise, read, and write about psychotherapy. I’m also the Managing Editor of Impulse, the monthly newsletter for the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

How I work

I believe first and foremost, every successful therapy is built on a solid therapeutic relationship.

I primarily work and supervise from a contemporary psychodynamic standpoint.

What this means is that I tend to be curious about relationships – both those that we have with ourselves and with others.

I’m curious about the personal meanings of things.

I believe that our earliest years teach us hidden assumptions that influence how we perceive the world, how we relate to others, what dilemmas we face, and what choices we make.

I believe that we all are made up of different parts, some younger, some older, some quieter, some louder, and that these parts sometimes disagree with each other.

I believe that people generally do the best they can to feel okay in a complex world, but that often we experience double-binds where no choice that we know about will lead to feeling peaceful.

I believe that our ways of relating don’t stop when we enter a therapist’s office and that this gives us a rich opportunity to deepen the work.

Finally, I believe that real, lasting change requires something more than mental tricks (although you may learn some of these).