About Me

Following that experience, I received my Post Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Seton Hall University and began private practice in 1978 and have continued into the present.

As a therapist, I provide an environment of in-depth relationship so as to creatively and collaboratively form pathways to journey into new depths of being and new heights of living. I am pragmatic in my approach by listening carefully to what the issues are and understanding the context of the issue: who is involved in the issue and what resources are available to solve the issue. In asking about the history of the issues, I ask about them in the context of their current relationships, as well as past relationships, including development within the family of origin.

I work for getting results with value-based interventions, as well as helping to form new ways of perceiving the issues.

At the center of each session is my intent to create genuine hope. I do this by developing ways of embracing one's strengths in order to utilize one's own resources for creating tools to bring about change.

While my style of therapy is creative, spontaneous, and improvisational to the individual and/or family needs, it is consistently informed by and grounded in solid theoretical frameworks of study.

At the heart of my work is my belief that we are born with a core of inherent goodness and inherent resources that can become gifts of strength. Regardless of what a person does, or what has been done to a person, the inherent core that is uncontaminated from any life circumstance remains. Our inherent resources and inherent goodness is forever present and available. As a therapist, I facilitate the discovery of your inherent goodness while building a trusting relationship. Therapy is a relationship. The relationship inspires the person to bring forth their inherent resources as tools for healing and new life.

I am passionate about my clients having confidence in their inherent goodness and resources and being able to dream of better lives and better relationships. Confidence is the fuel for bringing dreams into reality.
If you would like to have an initial consultation, you may reach me by phone, text, or email.

I grew up in a family of marvelous real-life storytellers and bright, curious minds who loved to dream and bring dreams into reality. I believe it was a wonderful foundation for the making of a family therapist.

For 41 years as a therapist, I have been honored to hear the stories and help create solutions for the very young to the very old, the living and the dying, families of deep poverty to families of great wealth, those who have endured acts of terror to those who have been abandoned, those who have had to end lives to those who have family members who have been murdered. 

The tapestry of experience is one that is vibrant with every color of thread imaginable, with each thread desiring to be held and to be disentangled of the knots of circumstances so as to weave into newness of being. To disclose one's story and to dream of new ways of being is at the heart of the process of change called therapy. 

Following graduation from college, I was in elementary education for eight years at the University of Iowa Hospital School for Severely Handicapped Children. This opportunity had the deepest impact on my development, both personally and professionally. More than any books I read or lectures I heard, my students taught me about the essence of being. Within each child was the light of their soul that shone through any and all limitations regardless of the severity of their physical disabilities.

Their physical beings were merely the shell that held the depth of their being. My journey with each child, and with their family, was a profoundly formative time in my life. It was the enriching preface of entering into the field of family therapy.

My professional development as a family therapist began when I pursued my Master's of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. My hospital chaplaincy internship led me to specialize in working with the dying. This, in turn, led me to care deeply for the family and caregiver of the dying, as well as the person who was dying. 

The doorway into family therapy opened naturally, and I began my years of training at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center with Salvador Munition, a pioneer of family therapy. He invited me to join the staff and work with the Cambodian Boat People immigrating to the United States in the late seventies. This profound experience deepened my love for working with different cultures.