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Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Certified Eating Disorders Specialist
Certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy
practitioner
Here's some basic info about my work as a psychotherapist
and yoga therapist. I work with individuals and couples, and families of all configurations. My intention is to assist my
clients in weathering the sometimes rough waters of life that we all encounter.
The body, the mind, the emotions, and the spirit are the
components that make up a human being; I recognize and honor the importance of including all of these parts for an experience
of healing and growth. I do so with the utmost respect for my clients' inner wisdom.
As a psychotherapist, I help
individuals, couples and families of all types address a variety of difficulties, including relationships (married, co-habitating,
committed or dating), anxiety, depression, life transitions and identity issues, parenting problems, infertility, and pet
loss. I'm LGBTQ-friendly.I work with adult children of alcoholics and other troubled families, adult survivors of childhood
trauma and abuse, and people active in 12-Step or other addiction recovery programs.
In addition, as an eating
disorders specialist, I diagnose and treat anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating, obesity, compulsive exercise,
body image issues and related problems. I counsel bariatric surgery patients, pre-and-post-op.
I offer group therapy for women in which we address disordered
eating, weight and body image concerns. I have two open-ended groups:one for women with undereating/restricting/over-exercising/bingeing
and/or purging problems, the other for women struggling with overeating/binge eating/emotional eating and/or obesity. Group
membership is limited to 8, and members are required to be in individual therapy (with me or another therapist).
I'm certified as an Eating Disorders Specialist (CEDS) by the International Association of Eating Disorders
Professionals (IAEDP), and I'm an IAEDP approved supervisor. I am the Eating and Food Issues Topic Expert for GoodTherapy.org
(you can read my monthly articles by clicking the Topic Expert button, below) . In the early 1990's I was a therapist at the
Beverly Hills Medical Center's Step One eating disorders program, and then at the Rader Institute eating disorders unit at
the AMI Medical Center, both in Los Angeles. From September 1996, until July, 2006, I was a staff psychotherapist at Structure
House, a residential treatment center for obesity and overeating in Durham, NC.
I believe in the wisdom of the body,
and incorporate somatic, or body-oriented techniques, in my way of practicing psychotherapy. For work involving current difficulties
resulting from trauma, abuse or neglect that occurred in childhood, adolescence or young adulthood, I utilize the DNMS-- Development
Needs Meeting Strategy-- a gentle yet powerful means of healing childhood wounds. For more information, visit the DNMS website,
by clicking on the link below. I also employ Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which offers practical skills for healthy
coping as alternatives to self-damaging behaviors.
As a certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner, I offer sessions designed to relieve stress, increase
physical flexibility, and provide a means for a client to connect with her or his inner wisdom, to support personal growth
and healing. For more information, visit the PRYT website (see link below).
I've received training in trauma-sensitive yoga teaching through the Trauma Center at JRI in Boston, MA and offer yoga
classes for survivors of all types of traumatic experiences. Please visit my "Trauma-Sensitive Yoga" page for further information.
Private yoga instruction also available.
The DNMS homepage
Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy
And you may be wondering-- why
"pizzadreams?" Well, my husband is a musician, and in his bachelor days, after a late night gig, he'd stop and pick up a frozen
pizza, take it home, heat it up, eat it, go to bed and have vivid, colorful dreams that he labled "pizza dreams." So we keep
the dreams alive by so naming our business endeavors.
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