About Me

I am a trauma survivor. I am also a trained (now retired) psychotherapist and clinical nutritionist. I have spent years working in the fields of addiction, mental health, child and family therapy, and life coaching. I spent a great deal of time working with kiddos with Autism and Asperger’s. I also have extensive training in energy medicine, functional health, and nutrition. For many years my passion was diving into the trenches with each client and helping to get their head above water so they could create a new life and heal their pain. Because I had dived so deeply into my own pain, I could lead the way. Now it’s time for my next step.

In addition to running my practice I wrote a memoir titled, Riding Standing Up, which chronicles my own trauma story. It took me 44 years to tell it and it was a monumental step in my own recovery.

My writing is raw at times but more importantly it’s honest. I share my own setbacks, obsessive thoughts, melty moments, and sad feelings with the hope that you realize even a highly trained professional doesn’t have all the answers. We are all on our path to wellness. I can say that even though I struggle just like everyone, I DID make the choice a long time ago to take responsibility for my life, my choices, and my outcomes. This was tough because I have made a lot of poor choices along my recovery road. In order to grow we must let go of the shame that often accompanies those decisions. Writing my memoir was a huge step in that direction.

I believe in the victim-survivor-thriver model. This means that one must acknowledge he/she was violated and NOT glaze over the tragedy. If we try to forgive too soon or minimize our situation, we will be forced to relive it again and again until we feel heard. Once we do, we can move into survivor mode. This doesn’t mean we live in a survival state because that would be too much on our nervous systems. It means we give ourselves a great deal of credit for having come through a terrible experience. We are still here. We are still breathing and that counts for a lot. Yes, we may check out with food. We may check out with wine. The point is we have been relatively functional because we are still alive. We take credit for that. We learn to love ourselves and find our worth. Through healing, we evolve out of survivor and into thriver. Here, we learn to cultivate our best life!

Uncaged is a step-by-step trauma integration manual that leads us to the thriver stage of functioning. I created the Facet Integration model as a way to take my healing to a new level. After years of schooling, therapy, workshops, and self-help books I felt like I had reached a standstill, yet there was still more work to be done. Discovering facets was the missing link I needed to learn how to love myself in a profound way and integrate the traumas that still plagued me.