I am a certified Jungian analyst as well as a licensed psychologist (license PSY11144). I have been in private practice for almost decades. I first became licensed as an MFT (then called an MFCC) in 1979, and as a psychologist in 1989. Years later, after an additional seven years of training through the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco, I became an internationally certified Jungian analyst in 2010 (IAAP). Psychotherapy and analysis seeks to address the full range of human experience, our history, family, intimate relationships, our identity, cultural and class backgrounds, our injuries, and most importantly- our strengths. In addition, Jungian analysis embraces the role of images as well as affects, not only in dreams but in our everyday lives. The psyche often works through emotionally meaningful images/experiences, and by following them, we can discover more about our relationships and ourselves.
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 with a wide range of painful symptoms and conditions, such as anxiety, depression, creativity blocks, grief, spiritual crises, mood, and thought disorders . Alth ough I have extensive training in child therapy and assessment, I currently work only with adults, including college age students, as well as couples. Jungian analysis and long-term depth oriented psychotherapy emphasize the integration of our whole being, ranging from the outer practicalities of functioning in the outer world to the sense of our unique selves as rich and complex beings. I consider my work as a calling rather than merely a profession.
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 field placements), first in Vermont, ( Spring Lake Ranch ), then in Great Britain ( The Richmond Fellowship ), and after college 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 illnesses. In addition to my regular practice with high functioning individuals, I also continue to see individuals who have major psychiatric illnesses, are stabilized on medication, and can form a treatment alliance.
In addition to my clinical work I also teach, train, consult to and supervise other therapists through my private practice, at the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and at The Psychotherapy Institute here in Berkeley. I have taught and made presentations in numerous venues including The C. G.Jung Institute of San Francisco, the California State Psychological Association, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, The Psychotherapy Institute, The Women's Therapy Center, JFK University, and many others.
I have undergone my own extensive Jungian analysis as well as long term psychodynamic psychotherapy. Supervision and consultation both in and outside training have continued to be valuable to my work as a clinician. 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. My patients continue to teach me on a daily basis as well.
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, postmodern theory and analytic training, on body modification and its many possible psychological and spiritual meanings, the archetypal roots of debt and recently on a key note address for senior clinicians on shame, social class and supervision. I have helped create and facilitate a seven year long seminar for seasoned clinicians at The Psychotherapy Institute that seeks to upend our habitual ways of approaching human phenomena.
Both my clinical work and my teaching encompass a whole-person approach to problems. This means that I see symptoms as psyche's way of drawing our attention to pressing aspects of our lives which are going unheeded and causing us pain- not merely as "neurotic" or as "dysfunctional conflicts." I believe psychological pain points both to the injury and ultimately toward the deep sources of healing.