My Background

My path into this work has been shaped by over a decade of clinical practice, academic training, and a long-standing interest in how care is offered—both interpersonally and structurally.

I hold a Master of Social Work and a Master of Divinity, with a focus on bioethics, race, and gender. Those degrees shaped how I think about mental health not just as an individual experience, but as something deeply influenced by culture, power, and access to care. I later completed a PhD focused on care ethics, harm reduction, and the structural factors that shape health and well-being.

Clinically, my training is grounded in Person-Centered Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). I am intensively trained in DBT through Behavioral Tech and work integratively, drawing from multiple approaches to meet the needs of each client. Much of my work has been alongside people experiencing high emotional distress, which has reinforced the importance of steady, collaborative, and nonjudgmental care.

Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with people navigating a wide range of relationships to substances, as well as those moving through major life transitions. These experiences have shaped my interest in harm reduction, agency, and approaches to change that are responsive rather than prescriptive.

I am licensed in California and North Carolina and welcome clients of all backgrounds. I particularly enjoy working with LGBTQI+ clients, and I invite clients to bring spiritual or religious practices into therapy when they are meaningful to them.