I’m an associate clinical social worker and psychotherapist registered with the state of California. In my practice I see adolescents and adults who experience problems with living, whether in work, school, play, love, or making meaning in their lives. This may show up as challenges with self-esteem, questions related to identity, experiences of grief and loss, body-based and somatic issues, unsatisfying patterns in relationships (personal and professional), creative impasses and blocks, feeling lost or hopeless, excessive worrying, and both over-constricted or overwhelming emotional states.

Among colleagues I have a reputation for being warm, thoughtful, and engaged. I’m particularly sensitive to my patients’ uniquely experienced and intersecting identities (such as class, race, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, and gender), both as these are experienced in the social environment and as they appear “in the room” between us.

While I can speak to my approach — which is informed by contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy — the best way to find out if we might work well together is to be in touch for an initial consultation, where I’m happy to answer your questions. Research on psychotherapy shows that one of the single largest contributors to positive outcomes in psychotherapy is the relationship between therapist and patient. For that reason, if you’re curious about working together, I invite you to contact me for a 25 minute consultation and, perhaps, a preliminary session to see if we’re a good fit. You’re welcome to contact me by email or phone to set up a no-cost consultation.

I’ve worked in a variety of roles throughout the field of mental health: as a crisis counselor for the Suicide Prevention Center, as a therapist providing free psychotherapy to young people and their families through the Venice Family Clinic, in an after-school program for teens aging-out of youth social services, and as a primary and group therapist in the Adult Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient program at UCLA. I continue to run psychotherapy groups for patients in the Adult, Child, and Adolescent Inpatient services in the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA. Additionally, I work in private practice under the supervision of Dr. Penelope Katz.

I earned a BA in Philosophy and Literature from St. John’s College and an advanced degree in Literature from the University of British Columbia before pursuing my Masters of Social Work from the Smith College School for Social Work. In addition to my graduate training, I hold a certificate in Psychoanalytic Social Work Practice from the Sue Fairbanks Psychoanalytic Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and am currently pursuing clinician-level training in Mentalization Based Treatment, an evidence-based modality focused on attachment relationships, through the Mentalizing Initiative in Los Angeles. I continue to engage professionally through membership in the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 39), and the American Group Psychotherapy Association.