LCMHC, 30 years of experience
Struggling with chronic pain, trauma, anxiety, or relentless stress? You’re not alone—and you’re in the right place. For three decades I’ve helped people just like you find lasting relief and regain control of their lives. As a Board Certified Biofeedback Specialist (BCIA since 1995), I’ve worked in both hospital and private practice settings, helping clients overcome conditions linked to imbalances in the autonomic nervous system. I understand the toll that chronic pain and trauma can take—both personally and professionally—and I know what it takes to heal. Together, we can help your body and mind find balance, resilience, and calm again.
Our work together is designed to give you the tools and skills to manage—and often significantly reduce or even eliminate—your symptoms. During our first session, you’ll identify and rate your physical, mental, and emotional symptoms on a scale from 1 to 10, highlighting the areas that matter most to you. As we continue working together, we’ll revisit those ratings from time to time to track your progress and celebrate the improvements as your numbers steadily move down.
My greatest strengths are helping clients learn how to integrate these skills into their everyday lives—creating changes that truly last—and witnessing the powerful results that follow. Many of my clients have reduced their pain from a level 10 (extreme) to a 0 (no pain), allowing them to rediscover joy and fulfillment in their lives. Chronic pain often develops or persists because the nervous system becomes over-aroused and unable to return to balance. The mind, body, and emotions are deeply interconnected, and healing happens when we address all three together. What sets my work apart is the depth of my experience—both professionally and personally. I understand the journey because I’ve lived it and helped many others do the same. I’m also the author of two books: the award-winning Migraines Be Gone and The Stress Mess.
I work best with clients who are seeking skills to control physical, mental or emotional symptoms of stress or traumatic stress. I frequently work with clients having chronic pain, headaches, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, PTSD, chronic stress, or any condition linked to an overworked or imbalanced nervous system. Through body-centered and mindfulness-based approaches, you’ll learn how to calm and regulate your autonomic nervous system. Together, we’ll focus on gently releasing stored stress and trauma from the nervous system. You’ll also learn how to quiet and direct your thoughts, so you feel more in control of your mind rather than at its mercy. Emotional regulation is a key part of this process, helping you respond to life’s challenges with greater ease and resilience. The skills you’ll develop are practical, sustainable, and designed to integrate seamlessly into your daily life. My approach is holistic, compassionate, and effective—helping you move toward lasting healing and peace.
I have been Board Certified in Biofeedback (BCIAC) since 1995. I use the principles of biofeedback in counseling. It is extremely effective. It is true mind-body healing and is scientific and provable. I have used it primarily with chronic pain and headache patients. However, I use it with any condition where the nervous system is out of balance.
Mindfulness training, and self-compassion training, are two more modalities that I find to be very effective for many symptoms. Mindfulness trains you to be more fully in the present moment by increasing your awareness of your internal state and surroundings. If you are fully in the present moment it is not possible to have fear of the future (anxiety). It teaches you to observe your thoughts, emotions, and other present-moment experiences without judging or reacting to them. Self-compassion teaches you to be as loving, kind, and nonjudgemental towards yourself as you would be towards a good friend in distress.
I integrate transpersonal psychology into my sessions when clients are wanting it and are open to it. Transpersonal psychology explores spiritual and transcendent aspects. It relates to growth through higher consciousness and higher thinking. It can be very helpful in anxious and troubled times to touch into one’s own spiritual connection for support.
I use CBT to help clients recognize unproductive thoughts and replace them with thoughts that will better serve them. I help them to see how the thoughts create our emotions. Then, the emotions create reactions in the body. Those reactions can be chemical, hormonal, muscular, changes in the heart rate, respiration, and much more. Obviously, the quality of our thoughts are critical to our physical health. I work holistically.
By now you know I take an integrative approach. My master's degree was in Humanistic psychology. It is part of my schema; as is Gestalt, somatic healing, compassion focused therapy, and existential therapy. I use different approaches with different clients but it always includes healing of the mind, physical body, and emotional body. They cannot be separated!