10560 Main Street, Suite PH15, Fairfax, VA 22030
Experience and Training
- I have twenty years' experience as a counselor/psychotherapist, mainly in private practice, and prior to that worked with individuals, couples, families and groups in such settings as community mental health organizations, private clinics, addiction treatment centers, hospice, and social service organizations. I am licensed in both Virginia and Maryland.
- After receiving my MSW degree, I attended eight years of post-graduate clinical training at the Washington School of Psychiatry, and at the ISTDP Institute in Washington DC. Two years of advanced supervision and now bi-weekly supervision/consultation keeps my knowledge and skills current.
- Other more specialized training includes a license as a Certified Substance Abuse Counselor in 2011, certification as a health counselor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2009, and training in bereavement and loss. My interest in mind/body healing led to training in various techniques and a long-term meditation practice.
- While my work as a psychotherapist is based on my education and training, my varied life experience and life transitions enable me to empathize with others, and my intellectual curiosity and dedication to life-long learning inspires and keeps me going. Helping people reach their goals, learn more about themselves, both in relationships and in self-understanding, is how I strengthen and draw on my experience and education.
Partnership to Create Change
The essential ingredient of treatment is to have a good working alliance, clarity regarding the goal, and willingness to work together to reach that goal.
Present-focused Treatment
Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy
(ISTDP) is a process-based therapy grounded in empirical research. The caring, focused attention during each session helps in the acceptance of emotional experience, identifies emotional avoidance tactics, and activates the healthy forces within the patient.