Upon completing my master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch University Seattle, I joined a community-based agency serving King County. In my early years as a clinician, I specialized in trauma-focused interventions, crisis intervention, and advocacy for marginalized populations. Later, I was tasked with establishing a new clinic for my agency in the heart of Seattle at Pike Place Market with a focus on crisis intervention and high-acuity clinical populations. I completed my Counselor Education and Supervision PhD and wrote my dissertation on the lived experiences of survivors of narcissistic abuse.
I believe strongly in the foundation of clinical insight, skills, knowledge, global understanding, and cultural humility. These components are what develops at the core of every clinician through the growth and development that comes with education. This level of in-depth work requires a safe learning environment in which to challenge our deepest assumptions and beliefs. I strive to create such an environment built from collaboration with students, mutual respect and understanding, clear and respectful communication, empathy and caring, and a promise of authenticity.
- B.A. in Psychology – Kent State University – Kent, OH – 2006
- M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling – Antioch University Seattle – Seattle, WA – 2015
- PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision – Antioch University Seattle – Seattle, WA – 2015
Individuals taking on the gargantuan endeavor of higher education in a helping profession typically have an inherent drive towards service to others. This innate pull to bettering the world fuels the soul, yearning to learn the skills essential to helping others. It is that drive that also inspires counselor educators in training the next generation of clinicians not just with the skills and knowledge but with the ability to critically think and conceptualize the systemic factors impacting the community seeking mental health services.
There is no approach to mental health care that does not include integration of social justice. Injustice and marginalization have a direct impact on mental health as well as access to the resources that will help to mitigate these disparities. Understanding the lived experiences of oppressed populations, being a voice for the voiceless, empowering the disenfranchised, and seeing the world from global perspectives are all attributes that will always be inherently intertwined, consciously or unconsciously, in all coursework and in students' future work in the field of mental health.