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Biographical Info
Education
PhD, Clinical Psychology, Nova Southeastern University, 2000
Training
Training: Divorce and Difficult Personalities: Bringing Legal and Health Professionals Together-Sept 2011; Building Blocks of Collaborative Practice-February 2012; Beyond Building Blocks-Sept 2012; Children’s Voices Infancy to Adulthood – June 2013; 13th Annual Meeting & Symposium-Nov 2013; Boomer Divorce/Presenter-Sept 2014; 15th Annual Meeting-Nov 2015; Parenting Coordination: Practice Foundations-March 2016
Profile
I was born and raised in Wisconsin. After graduate education in South Florida and post-doctoral training in Minnesota, I returned 12 years ago, and am happy to again call Wisconsin home. When I first joined a psychotherapy practice in Madison, I saw a large number of college students. A theme emerged among many of the young adults that sat on my office couch: they were still experiencing pain as a result of their parents ‘divorce. This was true if the divorce happened 5, 10, or 15 years ago. Some were depressed; others defiantly stated they would never marry. They tortured themselves over where to spend the holiday break or how to navigate a graduation ceremony in which their parents wouldn’t tolerate each other’s presence.
These experiences motivated me to become a Collaboratively Trained professional. In my work as a Divorce Coach and Child Specialist, I work with parents to consider the needs of their changing families. We develop strategies to minimize the negative impact of divorce on children and to foster healthy relationships among all family members. I appreciate the flexibility of the collaborative process, which allows me to work with a team to address the unique needs of each family. My hope is that the children in these families will not be sitting on a therapist’s couch in their young adult lives, still feeling intense pain from and suffering unnecessary consequences of their parents’ divorce.
In addition to working as a Divorce Coach and Child Specialist, I also serve as a family mediator. Additionally, I enjoy a diverse psychotherapy practice, working with teenagers, adults, couples, and families. I taught for over 15 years, first at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and then at UW-Madison, including both undergraduate and graduate courses in human development and adolescence and graduate courses in psychotherapy and psychopathology. I am a board member of the Collaborative Family Law Council of Wisconsin and a member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.