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We all have times in life when we become overwhelmed by life events. We all have times when the coping skills we have just aren’t enough for what we’re dealing with. In times like these we usually just want life to be easier, but we don’t know how or what to do. We want things to be better, and we want to be not just surviving but thriving and living our best life. This is often the time when individuals decide to seek therapy.

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I specialize in helping kids and adults build ‘toolkits’ - sets of skills that can help them better cope with current life difficulties and have success dealing with future challenges. As a neurodivergent affirming therapist, and someone who also has 'acquired neurodiversity', l am familiar with aspects of neurodiversity. I specialize in ADHD and co-occurring conditions. I teach a variety of coping skills that individuals can begin to apply immediately to learn how to successfully manage daily stressors as well as their extraordinary stressors.  Combined with traditional talk therapy, this allows clients to gain skills that become a foundation of stability- meaning our work helps with current problems and also brings long-term solutions for sustainable health and resiliency. I believe everyone deserves to feel good about themselves and lead their best life.

 

In my work with children I believe, as Ross Greene says, that "kids do well when they can” and I endeavor to work with kids and their parents to jump start the ability for kids to do well. I work on increasing coping skills for kids so that they can learn how to respond more adaptively to situations. Oftentimes, when appropriate, I also work to help parents be more attuned to their child and we work together to repair breaks and disconnects in the parent-child relationship and to help build a more secure parent–child relationship.

 

I also very much enjoy working with parents (on their own) of neurodiverse kids. As a therapist who sees kids, I have witnessed a glaring lack of education and support for parents of neurodiverse children and teens. Mostly I see clinics diagnosing kids with neurodiversity such as ADHD but then never teaching the parents about what is going on with their child. This leaves the parent uneducated about the neurobiology of neurodiversity and uneducated about how to help their child navigate their world, thus creating distance between the parent and child. The parent doesn't really understand their own child, which often leaves the parents feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, and helpless.

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Oftentimes neurodivergent kids are more difficult to work with because they may have significant challenges with their ability to get stuff done (for example clean their room, do their homework or turn in homework on time, adhere to a routine, take a shower, etc), have difficulty with social interactions, have difficulty with emotional regulation or difficulty with their ability to articulate themselves. For the most part in our culture we live in a neurotypical world. The way things work is usually set up for neurotypical brains. But for neurodiverse kids whose brains and nervous systems work differently than neurotypical, this can be like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. And parenting styles that may usually work for neurotypical kids often do not work for neurodiverse kids. This often leads to conflict and causes relationship ruptures between parents and their kids, lower self-esteem for the kids, anxiety and/or depression and behavioral issues- because the parent doesn't understand their child and how their child works. 

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I work with parents to increase their education and knowledge of their child/ren’s neurodiversity and help them build attunement with their child/ren. This empowers parents to build better relationships with their kids and to create a nurturing and supportive environment where their neurodivergent child/ren can thrive.

 

I also particularly enjoy working with adults who are in the midst of transition. Transitions occur when our usual way of being or functioning in life has been disrupted in some way or another, and it may seem that who we have been or how we have done things no longer works.

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At times in our lives, we may find that we have become locked into some external reality or life that for one reason or another no longer fits us. When that happens, something may happen to wake us up, or to snap us out of auto-pilot - to alert us that we have grown inside but our external reality has not. Transitions then must happen, when it seems our external reality has fallen apart, so that we can restructure our lives such that we can help our external world to catch up with our internal reality. 

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The process of transitions gives us a chance to become who we were meant to be in our lives, to become more authentic, more ourselves. Much of the transition process can be very uncomfortable for people, at best. It is usually destabilizing, painful and very difficult. If we can move thru the process successfully, however, we build a new internal center- one that is uniquely ours with integrity, wholeness and more authenticity than ever before. 

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Transitions can be anything from not wanting to do our previously chosen career anymore, a job loss, a pregnancy, a divorce, an illness, death of a loved one, midlife, perimenopause or menopause, etc. I have training working with people in perimenopause, menopause and midlife. At these times there can be, as Murray Stein says, "a crossing over from one identity to another...old selves are lost and new ones are born." It can be a time of great upheaval but also of great internal and external change. 

 

As a psychotherapist and practitioner, I am always interested in growth, self-development, healing, good mental health, bettering oneself, becoming more authentic, and gathering my gifts to help others in the world. I would be honored and privileged to help you do the same! My goal is always to offer a safe, friendly, supportive experience in which clients end up equipped to better handle their life experiences, thereby feeling less stressed, more resilient, capable and happier.

 

I graduated from Loyola University in Maryland with my Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and have spent over 20 years in the mental health field.​