About Me

I have been a student of psychology since I was a teenager (which was a long, long time ago). I have done counseling informally and professionally throughout my life. I finally received my masters in marriage (relationship) and family therapy from Northcentral University in 2012, fulfilling a life long dream to “officially” become a therapist. In 2012 I also completed an internship as a counselor at the Employee Assistance Program at Guthrie Health in Sayre, PA, where I worked with many individuals, couples, and families. 

I am currently doing extensive training and studying of Emotionally Focused Couple's Therapy, an exciting, effective model to work with couples based on building safe and secure adult attachment. Currently, I am working on the last segment of my training to become a certified EFT therapist. Additional EFT workshops I have taken include topics such as transforming shame and working with difficult couples. I have participated with my partner in an EFT couples psycho-educational workshop called Hold Me Tight that I hope to offer locally at some point. I am a proud member of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy.

I have also completed a year long course in M.E.T.A. (Mindful Experiential Therapy Approaches) which integrates somatic & experiential psychotherapy, applied mindfulness, and interpersonal neurobiology. 

I have a special interest in trauma; how it is stored, triggered, and processed. I have completed the first stage to becoming certified in using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to treat trauma.

Professionally, I was a Life Coach for many years, working with both individuals and couples. 

Before that, for fourteen years, I was an acupuncturist, working with populations who had many mental as well as physical challenges including homelessness, drug addiction, and life threatening illness. I ran a clinic focused on women's health, and another on detoxification for drug addicts. I also worked at a community clinic whose focus was serving people who were HIV+ and/or had Hepatitis C. 

For several years I also was a midwife assistant, doing home births. I have volunteered at a crisis hotline, a battered women's hotline, and have worked in elementary schools with a child assault prevention project (CAPP). 

In all my work I have learned a lot about being with people where they are, and how to support them to move forward.

Whether through this work, or my personal life as a mother, grandmother, partner, sister, friend, daughter, and granddaughter, my greatest learning has been through my relationships. For me, being in relationship has been the most challenging and rewarding aspect of my life.