First Appointment
Your first appointment will involve a formal evaluation so that I may get the information I need in order to best help you. This will take 55 minutes, and intake paperwork is required to be complete 24 hours prior to the appointment, or your appointment will be cancelled. Length of appointments thereafter will be 45 minutes. I will send you the intake paperwork in my confidential client portal, and an e-mail will be sent to you to get started. All of the paperwork should be completed online (do not print out).
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Specialties:
Substance Abuse
Aside from substance abuse abstinence only based approaches, I do offer harm reduction interventions for those who feel that total abstinence is unattainable or unreasonable. With harm reduction, safety, health, relationships and overall functioning inform client treatment goals.
For additional information or support: https://www.drugabuse.gov/
Eating Disorders
Myth 1: “You can’t have an eating disorder, you are not underweight.”
That is a phrase that many people with an active eating disorder hear from friends and family. Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes are often not detected or diagnosed until someone becomes quite ill. Sometimes even visits to the emergency department (our highest level of medical care in our country) do not test, assess or diagnose for eating disorders or food related concerns aside from severe malnutrition and dehydration. Clients I have worked with have been seen and released from well-intentioned emergency departments without being tested for the appropriate medical markers. 
Eating disorders are usually discovered during well check visits to a primary care physician (PCP). Mostly young, privately insured individuals attend these suggested “well check” appointments regularly. Adults rarely or almost never discuss being “underweight” with a PCP. In this country, “obesity” is diagnosed and discussed more regularly at the primary care level. Many individuals are often ashamed to discuss their often times embarrassing disordered eating habits with their primary networks of support, medically or socially; “People will think I am weird/disgusting.” or “They won’t understand.”
It is important for people to know that eating disorders can be treated successfully at various levels of care, from weekly outpatient sessions to residential treatment settings (only if medically necessary).
Myth 2: “Only young girls get eating disorders.”
As discussed above, many young women are DIAGNOSED with eating disorders due to the frequent well care visits during adolescence. Young women are often taken to the PCP when they begin menstruating or when they need to be medically cleared to play a competitive sport.
Every gender presentation and age group can be diagnosed with an eating disorder or disordered eating. This disease does not discriminate. More young women are diagnosed because of the societal scrutiny paid to a woman’s physical presentation in late adolescence and early adulthood.
I have worked with all ages and genders. Oftentimes transgendered clients’ eating disorders go undiagnosed or remain hidden, as providers are often creating interventions for the primary gender related concerns which patients present to their PCP for. All genders struggle with body image ideals and cultural expectations which provide the fuel for an eating disorder to remain in one’s life.
For additional information or support: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
Life Transitions: (Adolescence, Adulthood, Retirement)
Change can be awkward and sometimes really difficult, especially change we did not choose. As humans, we are sometimes thrust into change that we are not fully prepared for. Often, we have expectations about the expected changes ahead and these do not always unfold as we had hoped or planned. Whether it is situational, emotional, developmental, physical or existential, we are often surprised and sometimes angry with changes that come our way. Crisis often accompanies change.
Growing up, entering adulthood, becoming a parent, moving towards retirement, these are changes that are mostly inevitable or at least expected in our culture. Each transition mentioned comes with a set of new concerns or sometimes even major problems. Inability to “successfully” manage expected transitions also creates feelings of inadequacy, disappointment and even despair.
Personal and societal assumptions have created a culture whereby an individual is often not sufficiently supported through major life changes. Adolescence is a time that comes with expected change, but limited tolerance for major mistakes. Becoming a “productive adult” is almost impossible without the long term support and collaboration from adults who believe in us. Parenting is supposed to come naturally? What if it doesn’t, then what? Retirement years are the “golden years”. What if financial limitations, physical health issues or grief and loss do not support that societal narrative?
Comparing our personal life transitions to those around us is futile and occasionally disheartening. We each have our own timeline, it doesn’t always match up with expectations.
I enjoy working with all ages, all individuals who are examining and exploring the beautiful and sometimes frightening transitions that find us during our lifetimes. Let’s dig into your story together and uncover some gems!