Food is one of the earliest ways we humans experience nurturance and interaction with a caring adult. Due to these early associations, food takes on many meanings about relationships, needs, control, and the value of self. The development of an eating disorder signals a problem in one or several of these areas; the eating disorder arises as an attempt to solve this problem, by drawing attention to the problem, by pulling the family together to address the new problem of the eating disorder, or by expressing and/or repressing feelings related to the problem.

Having worked with people with eating disorders in inpatient, residential, and outpatient treatment, I am acutely aware of how deeply an eating disorder can affect a person and her or his loved ones. Assessing the appropriate level of care is an important first step; some people need 24 hour care in order to be medically monitored and to reconnect to the body’s innate ability to communicate hunger and satiety and to break the addictive patterns of restriction, bingeing, purging, or compulsive exercise. For others, outpatient care of individual and sometimes group therapy will suffice to assist a person recover.

Being lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gay, intersex, or queer (or questioning) brings unique challenges in the often prejudiced and intolerant mainstream American culture. Although in the big picture we need cultural change, many people need help holding onto or exploring their sexual orientation, examining internalized homophobia, managing external discrimination, or negotiating decisions about whether, when, or how to come out. I offer a receptive place to reflect and examine perspectives about partner relationships, coming out, spirituality, family relations, and coping with prejudice.

Many people are hesitant to enter therapy with their loved ones due to the belief that people who love one another should be able to solve their own problems. It is not the lack of love that leads to problems; it is usually the lack of distance from a problem. When you can clearly see what another couple needs to do to improve their relationship, you may not be able to figure out how to escape unhelpful patterns in your own. While inviting a stranger into an intimate relationship may seem strange initially, many couples and families appreciate the opportunity to sit down together with another person to help identify and avoid harmful patterns.

Even when a problem seems to be an individual one, family or couples therapy can be tremendously helpful in supporting change that encourages and sustains healing and recovery.

One part of my work that I treasure is supervising interns as they work toward their licenses as Marriage and Family Therapists or Professional Counselors. I welcome different theoretical orientations in my interns, since I trust that therapists need to work within a frame they respect and that fits their values and personalities. (Despite the name of my website, I have worked with interns who use primarily Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and respected those interns’ work tremendously.) In the work of supervision, I emphasize the “Self of the Therapist,” meaning self care and how the impact of helping clients on the individual therapist, as well as the work with clients because countertransference and avoiding burnout are important elements of doing good therapeutic work. I also emphasize the relationship between therapist and client, which much research shows as the most critical factor in therapeutic outcome. With most of my interns, I meet in group supervision with Dr. Chuck Holt, MFT, LCADC, and meet individually as well. If you are interested in finding out more, please contact me before you graduate so we can meet to see if it seems a good match and you can be in line for the next open spot if you would like to work with me.

For children, the primary way to communicate feelings and thoughts is through play. Play therapy allows children to express themselves freely without needing the words for complex and sometimes seemingly contradictory feelings. I primarily work with children who are experiencing loss (death, divorce, chronic illness, moving), who need help recovering from trauma, and who need help adapting to change (foster care or adoption, changes in custody, identity issues). I work with parents to help them understand what they can do to help their children and to support them in stressful times. I know that I am a temporary visitor in the child’s life and that the parenting relationship is the primary, lifelong relationship of caring that the child needs. I have worked with children from ages 3 years old through 17.

Please see http://www.a4pt.org/ for the Association for Play Therapy’s explanation of why and how play therapy can be beneficial to children, adolescents, and even adults.

So much that causes disruption in our lives is due to loss of one kind or another. Finding the ground on which to stand to be able to endure and accept loss is one of life’s most difficult challenges. In our busy modern lives, losses often accumulate because we are too busy to allow in the sadness and anger that loss naturally brings. Grief work requires leaning on others for understanding and support and taking time to feel the emotions caused by loss. Each person’s passage through grief is a little different. Entering therapy sets aside a time and creates a space for doing this difficult work. I believe we are capable of healing from tremendous loss if given enough support and a way to reconnect to a meaningful life. I would welcome the opportunity to accompany you in your grief journey.

Some people think their experiences don’t count as trauma because there was no blunt force or they compare what they went through with what they have heard from others. My belief, which is supported by others in the field of trauma treatment, is that anything that causes significant doubt about one’s view of self or the world can be traumatic. Sometimes trauma is a discreet, dramatic event or events, such as being raped or physically abused, and at other times it is an environment that challenges or undermines one’s direct experience, such as a child’s experience of repeatedly being told his mother is fine when he sees her in a severely drunken state. A traumatic experience usually creates a survival reflex physiologically to increase the chances of survival and focus on how to fight, freeze, or escape. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops when a person becomes psychologically and physically stuck in this traumatic response and cannot consistently assess the current situation accurately. Responses that are adaptive at the time of trauma, such as dissociation, repression of feelings, denial of risk, and mistrust, become problematic later in life.

People can fully recover from trauma, regaining an adequate sense of control and establishing enough resources to counterbalance the traumatic memory. I use various methods to help people heal from trauma, including establishing more control over thoughts and somatic responses, challenging unhelpful beliefs about oneself, using current resources to assist the aspect of self in the traumatic situation, and gradually changing the perspective from one of shame to one of pride in surviving. Since most trauma becomes embedded in the body, I suggest increasing somatic awareness as part of this healing process.