Professional Journey & Personal Transformation
I hold a PhD in Individual, Family, and Child Psychology and am the mother of two energetic boys. With over twenty-five years studying children, families, and relationships, I bring both professional expertise and real-life parenting experience to my work. My husband and I have been together since 2008, giving me firsthand understanding of the challenges families face today.
Early Career & Academic Foundations
My passion for understanding children began as an undergraduate researcher studying conflict among preschoolers. This foundational work revealed something crucial: children need explicit teaching to navigate emotions and relationships successfully. This insight led me to teach social-emotional learning in elementary schools and work as a counselor for children and teens in the foster care system.
Pursuing my PhD was a natural extension of my desire to understand people deeply and help them thrive. My doctoral education centered on relationships, and I became particularly drawn to Interpersonal Neurobiology—a field that explains how our connections literally shape our developing brains.
Clinical Experience Across Diverse Settings
During my doctoral training, I worked extensively with children from elementary through high school, providing mental health education and psychotherapy to students throughout the Los Angeles County School District. Simultaneously, I worked in Community Mental Health, offering therapy to individuals and families involved with the court system due to substance abuse and other challenges.
Seeking deeper clinical understanding, I completed a two-year fellowship at a renowned psychoanalytic psychotherapy training program. During this time, I also received specialized training in eating disorders that led to my position as a staff psychologist at a leading treatment program for teenage girls.
My clinical expertise expanded as an attending psychologist at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Later, I served as Clinical Director of a high-end residential treatment program for substance abuse and addictive disorders in Beverly Hills.
Insights From Working With Diverse Populations
Working with clients from highly affluent families revealed something profound: while their circumstances differed from the foster children and court-ordered clients I had previously served, their emotional needs were similar with some unique challenges. This observation was reinforced during my time in practice with a prominent celebrity psychiatrist, where I noted consistent patterns among highly successful individuals and couples.
Creating Balance Between Career and Family
When I married and began planning my family, I relocated my practice from Beverly Hills to Manhattan Beach. There, I served as Director at residential eating disorder treatment program in Palos Verdes while teaching medical professionals how to treat disordered eating at a respected psychoanalytic institute. I built a thriving practice focused on relationship dynamics, working with individuals, couples, and families.
The Transformative Power of Parenthood
Despite my extensive background and passion for clinical work, everything changed when I had my first child. Parenting became my central focus, and I discovered that even with a PhD in Family and Child Psychology, I had much more to learn about effective parenting.
I immersed myself in specialized parenting studies, earning certifications in Reflective Parenting and Mindful Parenting, while also becoming a mindfulness meditation instructor. My deepest desire was to succeed as a parent, which ultimately led me to close my clinical practice to focus on raising my children.
Returning to Help Others Through a New Approach
Now that my children are older and more independent, I’m returning to my passion for helping others—but with a different approach. Rather than resuming traditional clinical practice, I’ve become certified as a parent coach to offer practical, hands-on guidance to families.
I feel tremendous compassion for parents who, despite professional success, may feel they’re failing at parenting. I understand firsthand that parenting is both challenging and humbling, yet also among life’s most rewarding experiences. I firmly believe that raising children well is essential for creating a better world—making parenting perhaps our most critical responsibility.
My Mission
I’m dedicated to helping parents understand their children and providing them with effective tools that actually work. I believe every parent can make a profound positive impact on their children’s development and family dynamics. My goal is to empower parents to become agents of positive change, experiencing the deep joy that comes from parenting well.
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