About Me

 
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I have been In private practice for over 30 years...

I help individuals and couples express their feelings and think about their experiences in a safe and enriching environment. A fundamental aspect of my work is the creation of a trusting space in which my clients feel seen and deeply understood. Many clients come to me during conflict, high work stress or emotionally intense moments in their lives, and our work provides a pause button in which they can manage their emotions enough to create, discover, and best consider their options.

My focus is always to develop this capacity within my clients - to help people clarify, understand, and manage their emotions so that they can think deeply about what is best for them. When people can think, they find choice about how they want to live in their lives, how they’d like to respond to difficult decisions, how they want to comport themselves in their lives, work and in their relationships and marriage.

I serve as a resource for families who are in the process of separation, divorce and child custody issues. I provide mediation, co-parent counseling, family counseling, and individual coaching as parents navigate this painful and often confusing process. I help families develop a parenting plan so that they can learn to co-parent in a newly reorganized family that best meet the needs of everyone involved.

I also work with individuals in tech startups and businesses. Viewing business relationships through a therapeutic lens enables me to help founders and cofounders to pause from the complexities of running a startup and to begin to better understand their psychological and emotional patterns. This understanding can help improve their communication resulting in more innovation and growth.

 
 
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PROFESSIONAL Associations:
 

  • Association of Marriage & Family Therapists

  • Association of Family & Conciliation Courts

  • Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

  • San Francisco Psychoanalytic Association

  • San Francisco Psychological Association Child Custody Best Practices Committee

 
 

Professional Publications

 

clinical Presentations:

  • “Using Psychoanalytic Thinking to Formulate Early Intervention Treatment Strategies for High Conflict Separating and Divorcing Families”, AFCC California Conference, October 2022

  • “Co-Parent Therapy and the Parenting Plan as Transitional Phenomenon” workshop, October 2022

  • ""Transference, Countertransference and Beyond: Building and Maintaining Boundaries as a Family lawyer"

  • SF Bay Area Bar Association October 2015
    Palo Alto Area Bar Association.

  • "The Co-Parent Couple: Psychoanalytic approach to working with high conflict separating and divorcing couples in Co-parent counseling" 

  • "How Attachment Theory Can (and Can’t) Guide Custody Decisions," State Bar of California’s Family Law Section Webinar, April 2013.

  • "How Attachment Theory Can (and Can't) Guide Custody Decisions," October 2012.

  • “Has the Pendulum Swung? Revisiting the Psychological Needs of the Child,” AFCC 49th Annual Conference, Chicago, June 2012

  • "How Learning and Psychological Styles Affect Participation in Collaborative Divorce - CoParent Counseling in High Conflict Divorce," October 2011

  • "Brief Focused Evaluation" AFCC Annual Conference, California, June 2011

  • “Identifying Defenses and Establishing Containment in high conflict Separating and Divorcing Couples”, COFAP 7th Annual International Congress, February 2020

  • "Developmental stages of a child in relationship to time share"
    San Francisco Family Law Bar

  • "Distinctions between Mediation and Special Master in managing parenting conflicts"
    San Francisco Family Law Bar

  • "How to work as a Special Master"
    San Francisco Family Law Bar

  • "Working with high conflict families"
    San Francisco Family Law Bar

  • "Using an Expert to Prepare your Client for a Custody Evaluation"

  • "How to read and evaluate an evaluation"
    San Mateo Family Law Bar

  • "Using an Expert to Prepare your Client for a Custody Evaluation

  • "Age Appropriate Schedules and Developmental Stages of Children"
    San Francisco Psychoanalytic Association

  • "Expert Witness: Master’s In Trial, American Board of Trial Advocates"
    San Francisco Trial Lawyers