My Practice
Every person, family, situation, and circumstance is unique. There is no single intervention or treatment that works for everyone. In my practice I include a variety of treatment approaches depending on the needs of the client and what works for them. The flexibility in this approach allows me to change, adapt, and grow with my clients as I come to understand more about the individual clients' needs, what they are looking to achieve in treatment, and how to help them reach their therapeutic goals.
​
I provide services for families, children, adults, and teens via telehealth, and in-home (in Alameda County), when appropriate. My approach is relational and trauma-informed, and includes elements of psycho-dynamic, attachment based, somatic, cognitive behavioral, structural family therapy, and family systems theories. With children, my approach includes child-centered play therapy, child-parent psychotherapy, and attachment based interventions.
Areas of Expertise
Child-Parent Psychotherapy
CPP is a treatment for trauma-exposed children aged 0-5. Typically, the child is seen with his or her primary caregiver, and the dyad is the unit of treatment. CPP examines how the trauma and the caregivers’ relational history affect the caregiver-child relationship and the child’s developmental trajectory. A central goal is to support and strengthen the caregiver-child relationship as a vehicle for restoring and protecting the child’s mental health. Treatment also focuses on contextual factors that may affect the caregiver-child relationship (e.g., culture and socioeconomic and immigration related stressors).
Circle of Security Parenting
Circle of Security Parenting Training© is a newly developed DVD parent education program offering the core components of the evidence-based and internationally acclaimed COS® protocol. This 4-Day seminar trains professionals to use an eight chapter DVD to educate caregivers. The program presents video examples of secure and problematic parent/child interaction, healthy options in caregiving, and animated graphics designed to clarify principles central to COS®. Circle of Security Parenting© implements decades of attachment research in an accessible step-by-step process for use in group settings, home visitation, or individual counseling.
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics
The Neurosequential Model is a developmentally-informed, biologically-respectful approach to working with at-risk children. This approach integrates core principles from neurodevelopment, developmental psychology, traumatology, sociology and a range of other disciplines to create a comprehensive understanding of the child, family, and their broader community. The Neurosequential Model is not a specific therapeutic technique or intervention; it is a way to organize the child’s history and current functioning. The goal of this approach is to structure assessment of the child, the articulation of the primary problems, identification of key strengths and the application of interventions (educational, enrichment and therapeutic) in a way that will help family, educators, therapists and related professionals best meet the needs of the child.
Video Intervention Therapy
Video Intervention Therapy (VIT) is an evidence-based, rapid means for bringing about change in human relationships. A video is made of two or more persons in interaction. One or more of these persons then looks at elements of the video together with the therapist or counselor. What is seen is reflected upon. Possibilities for change are considered. Because of the focus upon specific interaction patterns, this discussion can quickly be made productive and concrete.
​
One frequent use of VIT is for the treatment of child symptomology and parent-child interactional problems. This can be done with children of all ages, from preverbal infants to adolescents. Couple therapy is another frequent context. Supervision of professional staff (e.g., therapists, nurses, teachers, etc.) is another. Some psychotherapists and counselors who work mainly with adult individual clients also use VIT as an occasional supplemental help when a client has a problem in a relationship with a child, or with a partner.
​
Video Intervention Therapy draws extensively upon current infant and child developmental research (e.g., Beebe, Fivaz-Depeursinge, Nadel, Papousek, Rochat, Stern, Tronick, Ziegenhain) as well as related adult-adult interaction research (e.g., Frey, Heller). Its practical procedures reflect elements of both psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral therapy. It is being used in a number of psychiatric and family treatment settings in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
​