Psychotherapy

Counseling for

• individuals, couples and families

• adults, children and adolescents

With over 35 years of experience as a psychotherapist, I work with individuals, children, adolescents, couples and families for a wide range of issues: relationship difficulties, parenting challenges, grief and trauma, depression and anxiety, life/career transitions, stress management, addiction, eating disorders, communication skills, self-esteem, and spiritual concerns.

My work as therapist is to create a safe, supportive space for clients to open up, experience life as it is right now, and explore whatever is calling out for attention in their bodies, dreams, emotions, and thoughts. Often we may need to make detours into past traumas that prevent a full surrender into the present. As old grief, traumas, hurts, and losses are embraced and healed, inevitably clients drop into the deepest grief of all—the abandonment of oneself. As this is grieved, then the unique expression of the essence of that person can be freed up to participate fully in life, to blossom like a flower. As French author Anais Nin wrote: “The day will come when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Deep within each one of us is a vast intelligence that moves us toward wholeness. I am continually in awe of how effectively this guides the healing and awakening process--once we learn how to listen to the dreams, feelings, body sensations, and present circumstances that give clues as to where the healing wants to go next. This work is empowering to my clients as they connect with a flow of healing and transformation from within themselves and learn new tools for living more fully—tools that they can carry into their lives long after our time together has passed.

I have a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Clara and a license in the state of California (since 1976) as a Marriage and Family Therapist. The author of two books on grief Losing a Parent and The Infinite Thread: Healing Relationships Beyond Loss, I have taught at University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and John F Kennedy University. I have trained in grief work with Stephen Levine, family therapy with Virginia Satir and John Krop, art therapy with Janie Rhyne, dream work with James Hillman, Alice Howell and Charles Ponce, women’s sexuality with Lonnie Barbach, and Bioenergetics with Michael Conant and others at the Northern California Bioenergetic Institute.

I consider it an honor and a privilege to work with clients in this journey of healing, transformation and self-discovery. What rich resources for coming into our wholeness lie within each one of us—just waiting to be tapped!

Every part of you has a secret language.
Your hands and feet say what you've done.
And every need brings in what's needed.
Pain bears its cure like a child.
Having nothing produces provisions.
Ask a difficult question and the marvelous answer appears.

                                                 Rumi