About Me

I was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon. I’ve spent my adult life living in San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Before I became a therapist, I worked in the LGBTQIA+ & HIV civil rights movement for twenty years. My movement work spanned many arenas: impact litigation, public relations & communications, political organizing, coaching public speakers, project management, advocacy journalism, and qualitative data analysis. I learned a lot about diversity, struggle, storytelling, communication, and hope.

My time in the workforce informs my perspective about how workplace expectations, stress, and support systems can influence both productivity and mental health. Working at nonprofit organizations taught me about finding a purpose, stress management, and interacting with bosses, coworkers and employees. My MBA (Claremont Colleges, 2015) with a focus on leadership and organization development, also informs my practice.

My therapist journey started at Southern California Counseling Center (SCCC) in Los Angeles, where I provided therapy to low-income clients, took weekly clinical skills classes, attended group supervision, and developed and co-led a mindfulness practice group. Spending three years in a POC-led racial-justice-oriented group supervision showed me how we white therapists can re-traumatize our clients of color and how I could work to improve myself by unlearning racism.

I earned my clinical MSW at UCLA, where I concentrated on adult mental health and completed a research project on aging. I interned at the Department of Outpatient Psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente, where I provided therapy to adults, performed and wrote up psychological assessments for incoming clients, participated in weekly trainings, and co-led two support groups (one supporting transgender and nonbinary patients and the other supporting patients experiencing job stress). I also co-wrote two chapters on sexual minority men for the Routledge International Handbook of Social Work and Sexualities, which was published in 2021.

After finishing grad school, I worked at Cohen Residence, a transitional residential care facility for adults living with HIV/AIDS and a history of homelessness. Working with long-term survivors of HIV helped me better understand the specific effects of how HIV+ people have been treated since the 1980s. More generally, it strengthened my ability to work with people in their 60s, 70s & 80s as they navigate the complexities of aging.

I worked for three years as a psychotherapist at UCSF Alliance Health Project (AHP), a 41-year old agency specializing in providing mental health services for low-income LGBTQIA+ people. At AHP, I continued to develop my therapeutic style, learning new therapy approaches and developing approaches I’d learned previously. I also co-facilitated a weekly support group for long-term survivors of HIV and developed and led a weekly mindfulness group. I served as a therapist for the first-ever study on treating trauma for LGBTQIA+ people, learning and provided STAIR Narrative Therapy to selected clients. I also performed and wrote up mental health assessments for incoming clients.