My background includes formal education, professional trainings, clinical experience, personal experience, teaching, and mindfulness practice — all of which help me to offer a holistic approach to working with my clients.
Experience
I’ve been working with children and families as a therapist since 2006. I began in community mental health and have worked in pediatric, foster care, agency, and public school settings. I opened my private practice in 2014, and here, after working with children and families for over a decade, I began working exclusively with parents - to help them learn how to best help their own kids.
Since having my daughter in 2021, I’ve expanded my practice to include helping women and their families with issues related to pregnancy and birth.
Areas of Specialization
Social, emotional, and mental health issues in pregnancy and parenting
Social, emotional, and developmental issues in children, especially those under age seven
Adoption, trauma very early in life, and healing attachment wounds
Big feelings and big behaviors in children, including tantrums, meltdowns, yelling, avoidance, refusal, and not listening
Anxiety in adults and children
Highly Sensitive children and adults
Relational trauma (struggles related to family-of-origin)
Generational trauma (unhealthy ways of interacting with family members and the impact on subsequent generations)
Professional Trainings
I’ve trained extensively in the areas of Infant and Toddler Mental Health, Parent-Child Relationships and their Impact on Child Development, Mindfulness, Neuropsychology, Trauma, Anxiety, and How to Best Support Parents and Caregivers.
Some of the people who I have trained with and/or learned the most from include: Dan Siegel, Bruce Perry, Bessel Van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Stephen Porges, Deb Dana, Jack Kornfield, Kristin Neff, Shauna Shapiro, Richard Schwartz, Sue Johnson, and Tara Brach.
Education
I’ve completed a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies from Northern Arizona University, a Master in Counseling from Arizona State University, and a Doctorate in Educational Psychology from Arizona State University.
Approach
When I was in my PhD program, trying to pick a topic for my dissertation, I was searching for the root of my interest in this field. I knew I was interested in early development, and I was fascinated learning how much early experiences in life influence development. When I learned that the experiences children have with their parents or caregivers earliest in life are some of the most impactful experiences a person will ever have, and that these experiences shape not only the way they view and approach the world, but also their physical brain structure….. I was hooked.
And what I love most about these findings are the subsequent findings, which are that repair and positive change can happen even if there have been missteps, or even trauma, in the past. This means that if problems or challenges do occur when children are very young, we can address these, immediately, and help them. This can eliminate painful problems that may be happening in the moment (anxiety, high anger, meltdowns, etc.) and also majorly impact the course of their life, in a positive way.
Parent history, temperament, and personality mixed with co-parent history, temperament, and personality, mixed with child history, temperament, and personality; plus family situation, varying resources, support factors, etc., make this work multidimensional and always changing.
I absolutely love helping parents find the root of suffering within their families and finding ways to eliminate it. While all suffering, of course, can not be eliminated, interestingly it seems about 90% of it can.
. anddevelopment during very young ages, and I wanted to learn more about what contributed to positive and healthy development. I wanted to know what leads to people feeling good and empowered. I wanted to know why this happened for some poeple and did not happen for others. What types things help people have a “happy” life (and happy being defined as what makes them happy), why do some people have relationships that work, and others growth as opposed to led people to feel secure and good or not. I wanted to know how some people I began working directly with parents because, after 10+ years of working with mostly children and only sometimes their parents, I realized that relief for both parents and kids was happening much more quickly after parent-only sessions. I realized that helping parents learn how to help their children - in the moment, when problems were happening - seemed to expedite reaching desired goals significantly.
I use strengths-based, collaborative, integrative approaches informed largely by the studies of mindfulness, interpersonal neurobiology, and developmental psychology.
In my work, my highest goal is to help parents learn how to support their children in ways that are the most helpful, healthful, and life-affirming to their children - and also to help parents to eliminate toxic levels of stress, struggle, and discord as immediately as possible. My goal is also to help parents learn how they can best support their individual kid in the immediate and moving forward - according to both parent and child individual differences in temperament, personality, preferences, natural strengths, etc.
Personal
I live in Phoenix, AZ, with my husband, daughter (4), and rescue pup, Lily. When I am not working or parenting (which is my most challenging, most meaningful, sometimes most intense, and also most joyful work), I love all the things. Gardening, travel, time outside, deep conversation, light conversation, cooking, exploring, playing, taking my dog hiking, hiking solo, date nights, friend time, organizing, YOGA, meditation, trainings, learning, and time with people, including my brothers, my mom, and our extended family.