MY EDUCATION AND TRAINING

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California, Montana and Idaho, and a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Montana. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and my Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies.

My worldview as a clinician began at California Pacific Medical Center on the skilled nursing unit, where I gained experience working with a diverse population of patients coping with chronic illness, palliative care and the dying process. I later became a hospice counselor, working with children and adults navigating loss and acute grief. These environments formed my clinical foundation and perspectives on the many life and death cycles imbedded within the human experience, and gave me an understanding that these cycles have the power to open us to our full range of emotions, beliefs, and personal stories, as well as connect us to experiences beyond the personal—the ones through which we experience awe.

I then became a family therapist in community mental health, serving children and parents with intergenerational trauma. It was through this experience that I became inspired to “work upstream” to address challenges of lineage-based trauma before birth. This led me to gain training and certification in perinatal mental health through Postpartum Support International, as well as extensive trauma training, and became a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. These trainings supported me in serving individuals, couples and families at the beginning and in the middle of their family journeys, with the aim of decreasing patterns of trauma and increasing repair, healing, and prevention for future generations. During these years, I developed a subspecialty supporting clients navigating fertility, perinatal and infant loss. My previous experience in palliative care became a resource for the very specific, tender, and often misunderstood experiences that can occur in reproductive grief. I sought advanced training in this speciality and witnessed how underserved this population was, both in healthcare and mental healthcare. This led me to create The Missing Trimester Model of Reproductive Grief Care which I now teach to clinicians and other healthcare practitioners.

INSPIRATION

I am greatly inspired by my clients and their motivations for growth and healing while navigating their cycles of life. That inspiration combined with my own experiences and personal inquiries have fed my longstanding study of theories, philosophies, theologies and practices that invite us to consider big questions about the nature of life. As my clients bring their existential questions to therapy, I support them in their inquiries with the support of many teachers, writers, philosophers and clinicians at my back.

As a student of Depth and Transpersonal Psychology for nearly two decades, as well as a mindfulness meditation practitioner for nearly as long. I engage in ongoing study at the intersections of Depth Psychology with feminism, ecology, animism, ancestral healing and mystic wisdom traditions. I am influenced by such teachers as Marion Woodman, Beth Bremer, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, James Hillman, Joanna Macy, Tara Brach, Richard Rohr, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Francis Weller, and Daniel Foor.

Additionally, I draw gratefully from the wisdom of the natural world, as well as poetry, music, visual art and the teachings of my Celtic ancestors.