Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart….

Live the questions now.

R A I N E R  M A R I A  R I L K E

Therapist

For over twenty-five years I’ve counseled couples and families with big, complicated challenges. I have steady nerves, clear vision, unrelenting optimism that people can grow through their worst crises, and heart.

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Teacher

My passion for helping, counseling, and social work is so great, I teach others about it. For over a decade I’ve taught counseling to students at local universities. Alongside that, I work with professional folks in non-profit and healthcare settings, training on vicarious trauma, trauma-informed care, supervision practices, and the ethics of helping.

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Writer

I write essays, memoir, and the occasional piece of fiction. For many years I wrote copiously and forgettably for newspapers, but now I write the kind of stories that I enjoy reading myself: authentic, intimate, complicated, unashamed grappling with what makes us human.

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 Group Supervision
This six-month, bi-monthly clinical supervision group will bring emerging clinicians together to deepen their understanding of trauma-informed care and to create a[...]
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Strong @ the Broken Places

Ernest Hemingway said, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” I have a career-long passion for helping people in the helping professions explore the impact of vicarious trauma, the cumulative, transformative impact of working with people facing extreme adversities, and ways to expand professional insight and resilience.

Library

 Damn Your Meddling Ways
Appeared in The University of Chicago Magazine, August/September, 2016. More than lectures or books or classroom discussion, as an undergraduate[...]
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Webinar: Healing Vicarious Trauma
Vicarious trauma—sometimes called “secondary stress”—affects human services professionals who work with high-conflict, multi-problems clients. This webinar, originally delivered to staff[...]
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The Scary Things That Can Make You a Stronger Leader
Appeared in Governing Magazine, June 1, 2015. Criminals scare me. They know more about guns and knives than I do.[...]
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Earn continuing education units (CEUs)

As a gesture of appreciation, I'll send a copy of my article, "The Home Life of the Trauma Therapist," which appeared in Treating Abuse Today.