Photo credit: Sara Davis

I’m a native New Yorker who has found a home in the Bay Area for the past  20+ years. I maintain an East Coast sensibility in my directness and sense of humor, but I’m more at ease with the nature and pace of California.

Before becoming a therapist, I traveled many paths—through a neurobiology lab, a coffee cart, advertising agencies, tech start-ups, and more offices than I can count. My day jobs always served as the backdrop to my writing career. I wrote for travel guidebooks, published creative nonfiction, led writing workshops, and attended several writing residencies.

My passion for writing and my desire to become a therapist emerge from the same core places inside of me—an empathy for others, an interest in narratives, and a drive for a life of purpose and meaning. Being close to people and their stories, including my own, has been the defining feature of my adult life.

I’m a 500-hour certified yoga teacher and have taught donation-based classes in settings outside of traditional studios. I am committed to bringing yoga practice into daily life as a tool not only for personal transformation but for wider social and environmental change. I’ve trained with organizations at the intersection of yoga and social justice, including the Yoga Service Council, the Prison Yoga Project, and Off the Mat, Into the World. World. For the past decade, my yoga practice has been anchored in daily meditation, and I attend a week-long sit every few years.

Education and Experience

Education
* University of Pennsylvania – BA, Biological Basis of Behavior
* University of San Francisco – MFA in Writing
* California Institute of Integral Studies – MA in Counseling Psychology

Professional development / Continuing Education
* Internal Family Systems (IFS) Foundations for Trans, Nonbinary, and Queer Clinicians (36 hours)
* Internal Family Systems (IFS) Stepping Stones through IFSCA (48 hours)
* Internal Family Systems (IFS) Weekend Workshop with Richard Schwartz
* Sensorimotor - Level 1 Trained (93 hours)
* Gestalt Approach to Life and Therapy Training (7 month)
* Buddhist Psychology Training (5 month) through Spirit Rock Meditation Center
* Somatic Experiencing Weekend Workshop with Peter Levine

Associateships
* Integral Counseling Center at Pierce St - Traineeship & Associateship
* San Francisco Unified School District - Associate Therapist for LGBTQ+ Students
* Center for Mindful Psychotherapy - Associate Therapist

Associations
*Mind the Gap - Gender Affirmative Care for Children, Youth, & Their Families in the Bay Area
*Bay Area Open Minds – Psychotherapists Affirming Sexual and Gender diversity
*Gaylesta - Psychotherapist Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity
*CAMFT – California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists

Trainings Led (2022)
* Working with Transgender and Nonbinary Adults (for therapy trainees at the Integral Counseling Center at Pierce St)
* Intro to Sexual and Gender Identities: A Conversation for Educators (with Gretchen Wegner)
* DBT Skills Group for Trans and Gender Expansive Adolescents (weekly for 6 months) - Assistant to lead facilitator Caitlin Burnham LCSW.

Speaking events and Workshops

Prior to becoming a therapist, I spoke at the following colleges and conferences about gender identity and transgender experiences:

  • Princeton University, Colgate University, Harvard Divinity School, College of the Holy Cross, Binghamton University, University of California Berkeley, Santa Monica College, Loyola Marymount University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Hampshire College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston College.

  • World Professional Association of Transgender Health Symposium, Gender Spectrum Conference, Butch Voices Conference, Transcending Boundaries Conference, Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.