THIS IS MY STORY
MY PATH TO NOW
My path to this point has not been a straight line. But it has been a gift; fruitful, challenging, laden with growth. Phases of Change has evolved with me and become what it is today as an extension of my own journey.
I am a Psychotherapist trained as a Psychologist. I am a student of life, still learning and grateful. I began my clinical career at my local domestic and sexual violence agency working as an advocate, rape crisis responder and a clinician specializing in abuse. Three years into agency work I opened a private practice serving the same population until 2020 when I chose, based on my own wellness needs, to cease taking active domestic violence cases.
THE PARADIGMS THAT SHAPE MY WORK
Early in my clinical career I discovered Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapy approach which breathed new life into my work. IFS is both an evidence-based therapy method and a unique model for communication and change, seeing people as made of a core ‘Self’ and many naturally variable ‘parts’. In IFS, we regard this diversity as normal.
I trained for a year in this powerful approach through the IFS Institute in Boston, learning the model hands-on from expert practitioners. Learning through my own personal work (which is required) helped me not only develop the clinical skills, it showed me - firsthand - the transformational power of IFS. I learned a powerful new kind of therapy, but also to see and care for myself in a vastly different way.
IFS rapidly became my primary approach across all my work. I've woven IFS into graduate level workshops at Goddard College, CEU training for the Vermont Psychological Association and method instruction at the Expressive Therapies Summit in NYC. Along the way, I’ve found myself teaching IFS beyond the context of individual therapy, as a healing, expansive way for people to understand themselves and the world around them.
Along with IFS, a great deal of my work integrates the Expressive Arts. Much of my graduate work focused on developing ways to integrate creativity into clinical treatment. I am intrigued by how naturally creativity facilitates healing, and how it can help people express their emotions when words and shared understandings fail.
BEYOND THE BASELINE
Working in the world of clinical mental health is to be a problem-solver of sorts. People come to my clinical practice when they’re heavily burdened and need help becoming well again. While I value and enjoy the work of therapy, I also believe that we can begin from a baseline of wellness find great value in working toward more.
Phases of Change has become the home of my non-clinical work, helping people go deeper, and differently, into their journey of personal growth and development. In this space of cultivating wellness, I am excited to teach IFS as a paradigm for powerful change, and to integrate IFS and the Expressive Arts across various Courses, Cohort groups and other offerings.
We’re all suddenly living in a very different world. I believe concretely that ‘the only constant is change'. I also believe that while we would not have chosen these circumstances, we will pioneer things of value in their wake. If growth and personal development beyond the baseline of wellness call to you, consider yourself invited on a journey.
