"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." ~Unknown author
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." ~ Helen Keller
It takes great strength to open yourself up to the possibility that tomorrow can be different from today, and to allow someone else to help you make that possibility a reality. I view myself as a partner in your journey toward increased inner peace, enhanced health, more satisfying relationships, and greater success.
As a psychologist, I can help you understand why you have the feelings and make the choices that you do, and how to use your thoughts and actions to improve your overall well being. I rely on you to be an active participant in our work together so that I can better understand the road that you have already traveled and your goals for your future. The greater your motivation, the more progress that we can make together, and the faster that you will see results.
I assist individuals in using their strengths to overcome areas of difficulty. We first identify any relatively simple changes that can lead to fast improvements. I incorporate cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness techniques to help individuals harness the power of thoughts and daily choices to enhance emotional and physical health.
We often review relaxation strategies that can be used to quickly achieve calm in moments of stress and to decrease daily baseline levels of stress. Improved stress management has been demonstrated to lead to a multitude of health benefits including decreased headaches and pain, a strengthened immune system, improved blood sugar control, decreased GI symptoms, and reduced blood pressure. We frequently review healthy sleep habits to improve sleep quality and duration. Having good coping strategies and being better rested improves mood and makes it is easier to tackle life's challenges.
Sometimes I help individuals build other types of skills related to areas such as communication/listening, parenting, increasing independence, setting limits in relationships, and managing anger. With your permission, I am happy to collaborate with traditional and alternative healthcare providers, schools, and other service professionals and agencies.
Over the past decade I have been privileged to work with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families from a variety of ethnic and spiritual backgrounds, as well as members of the LGBT community. While people come to me for a variety of reasons, I specialize in assisting individuals who have been confronted with a medical condition or injury affecting themselves or someone close to them. We frequently discuss areas such as stress, changes in emotions and behavior, relationship complications, bodily discomfort, sleep problems, challenges in following medical recommendations, barriers to succeeding at school or work, loss/grief, and how others can best support someone facing these challenges. I see emotional and physical well being as intricately linked, and so I encourage good self-care for both mind and body. I am also happy to help individuals develop healthy lifestyle habits, such as improved nutrition and increased exercise, in order to improve current health or to prevent future problems.