A psychologist who has sat in the seat she asks you to sit in.

WHO I AM

I spent most of my life being the person who could handle it.

For a long time, I thought that was the same thing as being strong. It isn’t always.

I raised three children as a single mother while earning my doctorate and building a psychology practice from the ground up. There were years when stopping was not an option. My children needed me, the work needed to get done, and there was no extra time to fall apart. So I became very good at doing hard things.

One of the hardest was sitting in the patient’s seat.

I had to learn that competence can become armor. Independence can become distance. Achievement can be a genuine value, but it can also be a way of making sure you never have to depend on anyone. Sometimes the qualities we are proudest of are the exact ways we learned to stay safe.

My personal journey isn’t my credentials—my clinical training and experience are. But my story matters because I believe psychologists should be willing to go to the places they ask their patients to go. I know how vulnerable it feels to ask for help when you are usually the person with the answers, and how quickly a capable person can turn therapy into another place to perform, explain, and prove they are doing the work correctly.

How I work

Empathetic and direct. You will feel deeply understood rather than judged, but I will hold you accountable. Care without honesty keeps you stuck.

Intuitive and analytical. I notice emotional and relational patterns as they unfold in the room and use clinical evidence and assessment to clarify what I see.

Validation and insight matter—but validation alone does not create change. You can analyze fear without feeling safe. You can understand boundaries and still feel guilty every time you set one. Eventually, the work has to move beyond explanation. People have to feel to heal.

What change looks like

• Saying out loud what you have only been willing to say inside your own head.
• Asking for what you want without apologizing for needing anything.
• Saying no without feeling as though you have placed the relationship at risk.
• Allowing someone to care for you without feeling weak, indebted, or unsafe.
• Knowing which parts of your strength are authentically yours—and which developed because you had no other choice.

Therapy for parents

Parenting can bring unresolved parts of your own childhood to the surface. I work with parents to understand how guilt, fear, perfectionism, attachment patterns, and old survival strategies affect the way they respond now. This differs from parent coaching, which focuses on the child and the current family pattern. Individual therapy gives the parent room to understand and heal what can make responding differently so difficult. Explore support for parents and children →

Coming home

I am a Flagstaff native and Flagstaff High School graduate who returned home after more than 30 years in Phoenix. My Flagstaff office sits on the very same street where my parents brought me home from the hospital. Opening a psychology practice here felt like completing a circle and bringing everything I’ve learned back to the community where my story started.

Outside the office, I am happiest getting dirty, doing hard physical work on our three-acre property, or exploring the forest behind our home with our three dogs. I love discovering the quiet details people often walk past—a turkey feather, porcupine tracks, wild mushrooms emerging after a storm.