About Me

I am a native Californian and lifelong resident of the Bay Area. My early curiosity about people, their inner lives, emotional experiences, and the ways early relationships shape who we become led me to a lifelong study in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, culminating in psychoanalytic training. This interest is intellectual and personal, arising from my own efforts to understand the complexities of my early environment and the human condition.

In 1980 I began my studies in psychology at Mills College, a women's college in Oakland, CA, where I earned my undergraduate degree. I received my doctorate in 1994 in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in Alameda, CA. My clinical training in graduate school highlighted my interest in the connection between emotional life and the body. This led me to training in substance-abuse treatment, psychotherapy with patients with cancer, community mental health, and an internship and fellowship in a large medical center. These experiences deepened my appreciation for how unconscious processes and early emotional and relational experiences intersect with life's circumstances to influence our capacity to cope, relate, and thrive

I was licensed in California in 1996 (Psy14852). Some years after completing my doctorate and beginning private practice, I continued advanced training with The Masterson Institute between 2001 - 2004, focusing on the psychoanalytic treatment of personality disorders and disorders of the self. Following completion of the program, I joined the Institute's faculty, where I taught and supervised clinicians interested in deepening their clinical experience. Additionally, I served on the Board of the Alameda County Psychological Association for several years, including two terms as President.

Two decades into my career as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist I began psychoanalytic training at San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (2016-2021). This four-year intensive training has had a profound impact on my work and me, professionally and personally. Whether I am seeing someone for psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, my analytic training has opened a greater understanding of human suffering and ways of working with the struggles of human existence on a deeper level.

In my full-time private practice, I work with adults dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, addictions, relationship struggles, and long-standing patterns that interfere with loving and living fully. My approach is grounded in contemporary psychoanalytic thinking, which is to say that I look closely at the ways early experience, internalized relationships, social and cultural influences, and unconscious dynamics shape present-day life. Through the process of therapy/analysis and the therapeutic relationship, we explore these patterns together as they emerge, making room for new ways of feeling, relating, and being.

My goal is to help individuals develop a more coherent, flexible, and authentic sense of self — one that allows for deeper connections internally and externally, greater freedom, and a richer, more meaningful engagement with life.