Professional Journey
I am a seasoned licensed psychologist (PhD, CSPP), Health Service Provider (HSP), Harvard-trained with a specialization in the field of behavioral medicine (mind body connection) at the post-graduate level with over 3 decades of clinical experience. I am also a board certified, registered art therapist (MA, Lesley U, AATA, ATCB), artist, SoulCollage® facilitator, published spiritual educator, trained in, and personally familiar with misophonia, sensory sensitivities/intensities/ overexcitabilities, giftedness, 2e, multipotentiality, ADHD, women with ADHD, neurodiversity, neuropsychological testing, CBT/DBT/ACT, and gifted/2e parenting. I have a long-standing private practice in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, now on-line, with plans to return to the office at some point. I am available for psychotherapy/counseling, coaching and consultation, to facilitate workshops and to speak at events. When not working, parenting, navigating my 2e young adults’ educational and social emotional journeys, or volunteering, I can be found walking the dog, learning, writing, reading or creating.
Originally, I trained in, taught (Lesley U) and supervised art therapy, specializing in eating disorders, and then studied psychology and neuropsychological assessment, focusing on stress, coping, and depression. The bulk of my career has been as a clinical psychologist in the field of Behavioral Medicine (Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA, Mind/Body connection). As a staff psychologist at the Hallowell Centers (ADHD) and in private practice, I specialized in evaluating and supporting those with ADHD/ADD (individual and group formats, specializing in women), developing and teaching a self-regulation model of ADHD to adults, teens, schools, and coaching AD/HD couples. The prevalence of sensory processing differences co-existing with AD/HD led to pivoting my practice to supporting neurodiverse clients and training clinicians in the complexity of misophonia (intense sensory intolerance with emotional reactivity). Most of my clients are gifted, or twice exceptional (2e) in their unique ways and experience asynchrony-aspects of functioning that are discordant, some very high, others lower, and are thus in need of understanding their complex profiles, of developing any lagging skills, and celebrating the interconnectivity of their exceptional wiring.
Parenting Journey
For over a decade I have co-created and volunteered as an Intentional Parenting© group facilitator in schools, applying self-reflection, mindfulness, and character trait values to community building and parenting. I continuing to advocate, educate, and support individuals and parents who navigate the intense experience and interactive worlds of those gifted, those with sensory processing differences/misophonia, and those with attentional variabilities, in any combination, and will continue to do so in my practice and role as a certified Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted SENG Model Parent Group (SMPG) facilitator. Living in an intense, multi-exceptional creative household, my two gifted, misophonic, dyslexic attentionally- challenged young adults have been my mentors. Designed to ensure that we each thrive, we have had to make informed, individualized educational or professional choices out of respect for each of our neurologically divergent needs.
Personal Journey
As a ‘seeker’ and fellow creative, I too hear the call to experience the convergence between science and spirituality, the realms of the metaphysical, transpersonal, existential, and the grounding force of Life experienced in the natural world. As a labyrinth creator, and publisher of ethical character trait/value cards, I too endeavor to walk in balance, to maintain my center, and listen to synchronicity. I facilitate thematic SoulCollage® groups, conduct process-oriented art workshops, as well as lifestyle ceremonies to mark developmental passages, process grief, heal trauma, and to create beauty and harmony. I try to carve out time for my own replenishing pursuits, such as the visual arts (paint, collage, art quilting), poetic expressions, writing down the books percolating in my mind, creating pentatonic music (crystal singing bowls), walking in the woods, and tending to my spiritual practices and communities.
Thus, I bring to my adult, family, young adult, and saging elder clients a respect for the demands of juggling the joys and challenges of coping with their intensity, stemming from their giftedness, multi exceptionalities, anxieties, attentional and executive functioning, social, sensory processing such as misophonia, learning challenges, and the developmental concomitants of parenting and aging in a positive and graceful manner.
Helping clients revise their limiting perceptions so they may experience themselves, and one another, through the lens of their growth, proclivities, and purpose provides me with a great sense of fulfillment. I relish helping clients make intentional choices for themselves, their families, their work, or their developmental life stage, including at the end of life.
Credentials
- Over 35 years of clinical experience based on extensive training with adults, children, college students, and elders
- Licensed psychologist in Massachusetts, Health Service Provider (HSP)
- Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, California School of Professional Psychology
- MA in Expressive Therapies, specializing in Art Therapy, Lesley College
Selected Work and Training Experience
- Post Doctoral Student/Clinical Instructor/Supervisor, Department of Psychiatry, Behavioral Medicine, Harvard Medical School
- Adjunct Senior Faculty, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
- Staff Psychologist at the Hallowell Centers, Needham and Sudbury, MA
- Staff Art Therapist Hahnemann Hospital Eating Disorders Program
- Senior Staff Art Therapist McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
- Psychology Intern Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco, CA; Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
- Art Therapy Intern Children’s Hospital, Judge Baker, Boston, MA
- Birthing from Within® Childbirth Education Mentor
- Deep River® Facilitator
- SoulCollage® Facilitator
- Misophonia Institute training and educator
- SENG (Social Emotional Needs of the Gifted) Seng Model Parent Group (SMPG) facilitator
- Intentional Parenting© Group (IP) co-creator and facilitator
- GHF Author Gifted Dialogues
- Co-Author Lights of Mussar™ Cards for Creating a Balanced Life (Values/Virtues, Character Traits)
Memberships
- American Art Therapy Association (AATA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA)
- Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD)
- Massachusetts Association of Gifted Educators (MAGE)
- Misophonia International
- Misophonia Institute
- National Association for Gifted Children
- New England Art Therapy Association (NEATA)
- Gifted Homeschool Forum (GHF) (Professional Group)
- Quilter’s Connection (Guild), Watertown, MA
- Social Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG)
- SoulCollage® Community Forum