A Little Bit About Me

I love the work I do as a therapist, it feels like a true calling and I feel lucky to be able to be on this incredible journey of transformation. It has not always been so, as my path to becoming a counselor was not a direct one. My first career was as an Agricultural Economist. I have a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University and I was an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada for a few years. I realized pretty quickly that Agricultural Economics was not my passion and I resigned from UBC to pursue other interests. Several years of my own psychotherapy with a wonderful therapist in Vancouver, BC, Andrew Feldmar, helped me change my life in dramatic ways.

After leaving the field of Agricultural Economics, I eventually went back to school to study psychology and dreams. I now have two masters degrees in psychology. The first one is from Saybrook University, where I worked on my thesis about dreams with world-renowned dream scholar Stanley Krippner. When I decided to become a licensed therapist, I obtained a second masters degree, this one in counseling psychology, from Pacifica Graduate Institute.

I began counseling clients in the Fall of 2004. Since that time, I have worked with homeless and low-income clients in a reduced-fee psychotherapy clinic, with teen girls in various high schools, with individuals in private practice, and with people in grief at Hospice of Santa Barbara, where I served as a bereavement counselor for a number of years. I have been in private practice in Portland since 2012.

Therapy groups are one of my great passions. I have led groups for widows and widowers, for parents who have lost an adult child, and for families with young children trying to cope after the death of one of the parents. And I have worked with individuals grieving the loss of parents, children, friends, siblings, and co-workers. I started the Art of Grief group in early 2014. This group is an experiential group for anyone who has lost someone they love.

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Oregon and I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. I currently live and work in Portland, Oregon where I have a private practice in Northeast Portland. I would be happy to meet with you so that we can determine together whether I can be of service to you in your time of need.