Biography

Welcome to the Brown School! I’m excited that you have chosen the Brown School for your social work education. My background is in working with individuals, families, and groups who have been impacted by trauma and life-threatening behaviors. In order to develop clinical expertise in these areas, I needed some very specific tools to help those who sought my help. My training and theoretical foundation is within cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT theory, or more specifically, contextual behavioral theory, sees behaviors in context and seeks to identify the function of behaviors in an effort to block problematic coping and enhance effective self-coping. Through this, my fundamental counseling skills are rooted in Motivational Interviewing approaches and techniques. My specialized skills needed to help individuals build lives worth living come from Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Finally, the tools I needed to help individuals overcome post-traumatic stress responses that were paralyzing and controlling their lives come from Prolonged Exposure Therapy.  Throughout my career I realized that we never stop learning, refining, and improving our knowledge, skills, and competencies in the field of mental health. I’ve been honored and privileged to have learned so much about human resiliency from my clients. This journey is as much about me understanding myself in context to my clients as it is engaging in a healing relationship. My hope is that you each can set your career towards eradicating misery and unnecessary emotional pain.