About Me

I was drawn to the psychotherapy profession by a desire to have positive, fulfilling and healing relationships with family members and loved ones.  In my early adulthood, I leaned heavily upon logic and analysis and started my professional life as an aerospace engineer. In anticipation of building my own family with my partner, I earned a master’s degree in psychology from Georgia College in 1993.  Although I didn’t recognize it at the time, I was continuing a life long process of seeking knowledge about how to truly enjoy life and help others do the same. I earned a doctorate in clinical psychology from University of Missouri – St. Louis in 2002 with a dissertation focused upon posttraumatic stress disorder.  I have continued to seek ongoing training and consultation in a variety of therapeutic modalities. 

Through working with clients for the past 30 years I’ve been able to observe what helps and what doesn’t help.  I’ve discovered that the most powerful approach must begin with meeting the person wherever they are from the first contact, whether they are deciding the fate of their okay but unsatisfying marriage or barely hanging on to existence because of excruciating flashbacks related to horrible traumas.  My clients have taught me that merely talking about thoughts and feelings doesn’t do much.  I’ve amassed an arsenal of skills to set people free and customize the combination to best serve the needs of my clients. 

My approach with you might include:

• EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing: an experiential method of identifying and changing behavioral patterns and emotional conclusions learned through past experiences)

• BLAST (an approach combining EMDR components with neurolinguistic programming, hypnotherapy, and mindfulness)

• DNMS (developmental needs meeting strategy: an ego state approach involving identifying, understanding and empowering parts of self who maintain anachronistic protective strategies)

• Mindfulness (a nonjudgmental and compassionate awareness of being in the present moment rather than powerlessly stuck in the past or anxiously projected into the future)

• Somatic experiencing (a body-based approach that deepens awareness and fosters completion of physiological survival-facilitating action tendencies to allow a return to a state of relaxed vitality)

• Inner relationship focusing (bringing awareness, acceptance and resolution to a felt sense of an emotional experience rather than becoming overwhelmed by or avoidant of it)

• RTT (rapid transformational therapy: a specific type of hypnotherapy involving hypnotic induction, regression to causative memories, and replacement of limiting conclusions with empowering curative knowledge)

• Heart Healing (a specific type of hypnotherapy involving ego states and developmental repairs to foster unconditional positive regard for the self and healthy relationships with others)

• Energy psychology (a broad category of interventions underpinned by awareness that focused attention on desired outcomes facilitates a joyful life)