Expertise

Clinical interventions:

• PTSD/trauma/stress/military sexual trauma

• Anxiety/OCD

• Depression, complicated grief

• Individuals with chronic medical conditions (MS, spinal cord injuries, Lyme disease, diabetes)

• Couples therapy/relationship difficulties; personality disorders

• LGBTQIA, particularly transgender individuals

Research - Cognition and Health:

• Integrative medicine:

  • Breathing meditation for veterans with PTSD;

  • yoga protocol adapted for individuals with persistent complaints of Lyme disease (Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome [PTLDS], or “chronic Lyme”)

• Substance use disorders:

  • cognitive effects of a medication treatment for veterans with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI);

  • drinking games in first year college students

  • brief intervention for college students exhibiting high-risk drinking

PERSONAL

“She”/”her”/”they”/”them” 

Most of my friends are in the LGBTQ+ community and I feel great joy in helping members of that community.

In high school I became severely depressed and a psychiatrist turned my life around. A year later, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I have endeavored to be the person I needed back then: to understand others, encourage and support them, meet them where they are at, and help them define and meet their goals. I believe if everyone were able to fulfill their potential, whatever that may be and on whatever standard makes sense to them, the world would be a wonderful place. I want to live in that world! If you’re convinced therapy can’t help you and you have to tough it out alone, then I want to work with you!

I am a collection of disparate things that typically don’t go together, which leaves me space to understand many, even conflicting, perspectives.

I come from a family of veterans and I was raised with an attitude of rolling up one’s sleeves to do hard work, saying what you mean and meaning what you say, respect for others, and keeping promises. I gently incorporate this into therapy and have successfully treated veterans with many types of trauma, emotional, and cognitive complaints over the 9 years I worked at the VA.

My grandfather was a pilot and I was raised around planes. I wanted to be a fighter pilot and fly with the Blue Angels. I have had to settle for motorcycle racer, instead! Although I haven’t raced since COVID, and I recognize the need for electric vehicles, I will always be a racer and a lover of all things go-fast.  The image is of myself at a track day on the Laguna Seca corkscrew.

Tldr; I really like purple. ;)

Fellowships

• Stanford University & VA Palo Alto Health Care System

• Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts Mental Health Center