MA, LMFT, CCPT

Experience & Education

MA – Couple and Family Therapy – Alliant International University

AAMFT Clinical Fellow

I Can Help.

My journey to becoming a marriage and family therapist has been unique. My family has lived in the Vacaville/Fairfield area for over sixty years since my grandparents were stationed at Travis Air Force Base. As a child, I was very interested in how things worked, which I suspect I inherited from my mother, who worked as an engineer. As I grew older, I became more and more interested in psychology, and the brain and how people think, feel and interact with others rather than mechanical systems.

Through high school I began learning Spanish, which helped me to understand how culture and linguistics play a role in our thinking and our psychology throughout my undergraduate and graduate experiences and I am fortunate to have been able to study in both Mexico and Argentina as part of my undergraduate and graduate studies.

After beginning my Masters’ program in marriage and family therapy, I began to notice more and more clients that had problems with trauma, even when they had other problems that brought them to therapy such as anxiety, depression as well as relationship issues, unfortunately, I discovered that many therapists and psychologists are not adequately trained to work with and treat issues stemming from trauma and stress.

My journey to understand the roots of trauma and how to best treat trauma and stress-related concerns took me to learning with a variety of professionals across North America, from couple therapy specialists like Sue Johnson, to taking classes and trainings on processing trauma from EMDR experts like Francine Shapiro and Ignacio (Nacho) Jarero. Through the integration of my personal experiences with clients and these trainings, I have been able to offer a one-of-a-kind experience in therapy with high success.

I provide EMDR therapy from an Early EMDR Intervention perspective and work to help people process and adapt to overwhelming events and experiences, whether it has been hours or years since trauma was experienced or have experienced ongoing traumatic stress. This set of tools is helpful for individuals and couples who have problems that have been ongoing rather than one-time events. This also helps to address other issues that are not typically thought of as trauma-related, such as anxiety, depression and other relationship concerns.