Three Leaf Connections

I have over 11 years of experience working with individual adults, children, adolescents, families, couples, and groups in therapeutic settings. I work with individuals who have experienced a specific traumatic event and are feeling more stressed than usual and having a hard time focusing and families with adult children who feel disconnected from one another. I help clients stop having the past affect their daily life and restore feeling like themselves again. I ascribe to the belief that all people have a desire for belonging with ourselves as well as how we engage with others in the world. I provide a nonjudgmental space with accurate empathy where you can relax and be yourself in a confidential and trusting place. I believe in the evidence-based approach that trust and safety established in the therapeutic relationship is the foundation to healing. I incorporate the theoretical foundations of person-centered humanism, existentialism, and attachment-based family systems. Using these foundations, I adapt specific intervention tools to the individual needs of each client, couple, or family. I do this by working on a collaborative path with each client to develop a stronger and healthier sense of self, create healthy boundaries and assertiveness skills, realize a deeper meaning of existence in this world, strengthen relationships, and solicit appropriate change in a healthy adaptive way. In 2017, I began specializing in EMDR, a psychotherapy technique to alleviate distress associated with traumatic and emotionally vulnerable memories. I hold two master’s degrees, an M.A. in Educational Psychology with emphases in both School Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy and an M.B.A. in Strategic Management. I earned an Advanced Certificate in Addiction Treatment and Services in 2015 and became both a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and an NBCC International Mental Health Facilitator Trainer in Kigali, Rwanda in 2017. Service to the community is a central part of my life. I have volunteered at Ground Zero after September 11th, traveled with a maternal health nonprofit in the rural Himalayas of northern Nepal, and led a mental health education course with survivors of the genocide in Kigali, Rwanda in collaboration with local mental health colleagues. I also served as an AmeriCorps volunteer and an intern at a non-governmental organization at the United Nations. Working in mental health is my second career, and I consider it my vocational calling. Prior to this, I worked for almost ten years in secondary and higher education administration. I began working in a therapeutic capacity in 2012 in an outdoor setting with youth and young adults who had emotional and communication challenges. I continued on to work in school counseling, case management, a family violence and sexual assault center, substance use treatment, educational and advocacy settings, and now as an independent private practitioner. I am a life-long learner and devote time each year to attend workshops, seminars, conferences, and consultation groups relevant to my work throughout the country.