I welcome all expressions of gender, sexual identity, orientation, and relationship arrangements with non-judgment, and I attempt to understand and appreciate you as an individual. I think and work outside the box. People find me to be down to earth and appreciate that.

I came of age and lived in the Bay Area for so long that I have a sense of the natural variation of human experience that transcends labels and paradigms.

I offer therapy and counseling to help individuals and their partners with relationship issues and communication difficulties. I also help people to improve mood, meaning, connection, and sense of self through self-empowerment.

I have always had an interest in psychology and since 1999 have worked with people in different counseling contexts – younger people, older people, individuals, couples, and families. I started off as a volunteer counselor with the AIDS Health Project of San Francisco. It was like a microcosm of counseling distilled into gunshot 20-minute sessions when people came in to test for HIV. We’d dive directly into the most personal of realms, under the shadow of possible significant life-changing ramifications. Inspired by positive experiences being in that supportive role, I then participated in the Integral Counseling Psychology program at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco; I graduated with a Master’s degree in the fall of 2003, and I earned my Marriage and Family Therapist license in January, 2007.

Before entering the counseling field professionally, I pursued a variety of experiences that I feel have widened my perspective and enable me to understand and relate to more people and what they might be going through. I had previously lived on the East Coast, earned an A.B. in History of Art at Columbia College in NYC, and then headed to the West Coast to earn a Master’s degree in Art History at UC Berkeley. Over the years, I have made black & white photographs the old-fashioned way using a darkroom, tampered with digital imaging, made two trips to India, experienced the transformative potential of Vipassana meditation and Hatha Yoga, written creatively, and produced a book on Native American rock art of the Southwest. I hope this gives you some sense of the kind of person I am.

I continue to seek truth in different ways and gently push my edges. And I continue to appreciate the unassuming things that pass us by – both heard and seen, both ordinary and not so ordinary.