I have a lifelong interest in exploring human relations, and a desire to facilitate healing and reduce suffering. I earned my undergraduate college degree in psychology from UC Santa Cruz, and my master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology. As a licensed psychologist, I have more than twenty years practicing and supervising effective and ethical individual, couples and group treatment.
Prior to opening my Hood River office in 2015 I was for nine years the clinical supervisor of Providence Gorge Counseling & Treatment Services.
My wife and I moved to Hood River from NW Alaska where I served for six years as the director of mental health services for an Alaska Native health care association, and before that I was in private practice in Sonoma County California.
I have training and experience in treating a broad range of mental health problems and diagnoses across the lifespan. My areas of specialty include depression, anxiety, stress management, chronic pain, trauma, and problems adjusting to a significant life event, loss or change.
For those with whom I work, my intent is to help facilitate a reconnection to inner strengths and core values. I am genuinely caring and compassionate, and strive to create a safe and supportive therapeutic relationship with each client. My intent is to help facilitate a reconnection to clients’ inner strengths and core values, which like a compass, guides the course of treatment.
The treatment modality I most often employ is Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is a mindfulness-based type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
I teach mindfulness practice as a method to become more aware and accepting of feelings and physical sensations that otherwise, through various avoidance and control mechanisms, often distract and hinder us from living a life based on what matters most to us.
To that aim, mindful awareness also enables clients to pay less attention to thoughts and other mental activities that are counterproductive.
A core ACT skill is to notice that while our minds are almost constantly creating thoughts, images or other mental activities, we have the capacity to observe those activities and choose which are beneficial to us, and to base our actions accordingly.
We don’t choose which thoughts or feelings or sensations arise in a given moment, but we can learn how to respond skillfully rather than just react to them.
I was also trained in interpersonal and psychodynamic psychotherapy. I believe that it is useful to non-judgmentally review early life experiences and relationships, as it is those early interpersonal experiences that set in motion patterns for relating to others, the world, and to one’s self. Early significant life experiences resulted in habits of thought (beliefs and attitudes) and/or behavior. Chronic shame, anger, and guilt, for example, are often a consequence of habits and beliefs learned in our earliest relationships and experiences. One benefit of psychotherapy is that it provides the opportunity to re-evaluate these patterns as part of a process that leads to desired changes.
Please read, download and print the HIPAA statement, and Disclosure for Treatment Statement and Conditions of Treatment Contract. Also, depending on the age of the client, download, print and complete either the Adult History or Child History form.
Bring the completed the History Form along with your copy of the HIPAA statement and Conditions of Treatment Contract to your initial appointment.
Please call if you cannot download and print these forms. I will gladly mail you the forms or leave them in my office for you to pick up and complete prior to your first appointment.