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I have been in private practice for over three decades. Over the years I have considered it a great privilege to work with many different people, from individuals coping with the uncertainties and ambiguities that accompany major life transitions, to others who suffer from a range of painful symptoms and conditions such as anxiety, depression, grief, mood disorders, and schizophrenia . Although I have extensive training in child therapy and assessment, I work primarily with adults of all ages, including couples. I am particularly interested in long-term depth oriented psychotherapy with its emphasis on inner transformation. I consider my work as a calling rather than merely a job. I am a certified Jungian analyst as well as a licensed psychologist.
My position as the clinical director of The Womens' Alcoholism Center in San Francisco in 1979-1980 began my work with addictions of all kinds. Today I see clients who are in long term recovery as well as those just beginning their journey.
I have also worked in treatment programs for the severely mentally ill and their families early in my career, beginning as an undergraduate in co-operative jobs, (college level internships), first in Vermont, (Spring Lake Ranch) then in Great Britain (The Richmond Fellowship) and after graduation in residential treatment programs in California. These programs were formative for me in that they enabled me to witness the potential healing that all people have within them despite the burden of severe mental illness. I continue to see individuals who have major psychiatric illnesses, who are stabilized on medication and can form a treatment alliance.
In addition to my clinical work I also teach, train and supervise other therapists through my private practice and at The Psychotherapy Institute here in Berkeley. I have taught and made presentations in numerous venues including the California State Psychological Association, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, The Psychotherapy Institute, The Women's Therapy Center, JFK University, and the The C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, and many others.
I have undergone my own extensive therapy, supervision and analysis for my own healing and as part of my training to work in-depth with the people who seek my help. For therapists, our own psyche is our best tool, and deep work on ourselves with another therapist is the fullest resource we can offer our patients. Theories, techniques and tools are limited or strengthened by our own self-understanding. I have taught and written on such topics as trauma, shame, class, women and poverty, addiction as initiation, couples therapy, transference and countertransference, cross cultural issues in therapy, experiences of the void, longing as transformative and, more recently, on body modification and its many possible psychological spiritual meanings.
Both my clinical work and my teaching encompass a wholistic approach to problems. This means that I see symptoms not merely as neurotic or dysfunctional-- but our psyche's way of drawing our attention to pressing aspects of our lives which are going unheeded and causing us pain. Psychological pain points both to the injury and toward the deep sources of healing.
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