Education & Experience

I received my Master degree in Community Counseling from the University of Phoenix and started my counseling practice in 2002. I began as a family therapist specializing in working with youth and families in low economic areas and great need. I counseled families involved with the juvenile justice system and helped them navigate and succeed under court ordered family therapies and child protective service investigations using an evidenced based practice of Functional Family Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I moved on to focus on children ages birth to five, mostly in foster care placements, who had been the victim or witness to unspeakable trauma and violence. Ultimately I found myself in the Maricopa County System for the Seriously Mentally Ill using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to treat serious mental health conditions ranging from personality disorders, emotion and mood disorders, dissociation, addiction (eating disorder, substance abuse, gambling addiction, shoplifting), trauma, and grief/loss.