My Credentials
Education and Training
Professional Memberships
My Career Switch
| Education and Training |
I received a Bachelor's degree in biology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. I have worked at a variety of mental health clinics and hospitals, and have extensive training and experience with:
- psychodynamic therapy
- cognitive-behavioral therapy
- family systems theory and couples therapy
- intellectual, neuropsychological, and personality assessment
- fertility-related assessment, education, and counseling
- health psychology and chronic pain
- divorce: impact for the couple and for their children
over time
- career choices and dilemmas (learn
about my career switch)
I have worked with diverse clients in a variety of settings:
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- college and graduate students at UT's Counseling Center
- adults, couples, children, and families from the Austin area
- veterans from the Austin VA Outpatient Clinic and the Durham VA Medical Center in North Carolina
- clients with medical issues such as diabetes, cancer and chronic pain
- GLBT and ethnically diverse clients
- egg donors, gestational carriers, and intended parents using artificial reproductive technology (ART)
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| Professional Memberships | Back to Top |
I am very actively involved in study groups and ongoing training. I am also a member of the following professional associations:
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine
- Austin Society of Psychoanalytic Psychology
- Austin Group Psychotherapy Society
- American Psychological Association (APA)
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| My
Career Switch |
Back to Top |
Psychology is my second career. Although I now recognize that my interest in psychology extends well into my childhood, during high school I thought I wanted to be a doctor because I was fascinated by learning how organisms worked. I entered Harvard on a pre-med track but soon discovered that my interest was more in research. After taking a year to work as a biologist's assistant in Panama, I entered graduate school and received a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1995 (my dissertation was on the evolutionary relationships of toads). I first moved to Austin for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas, and then moved on to Chicago for a tenure-track job as a research scientist at the Field Museum. However, by then I was having serious doubts about biology and secretly wanted to explore my passion for psychology (especially therapy). Since I had fallen in love with Austin, I took a leave of absence from my job and returned to Austin. Later that year I took the plunge, resigning from my job and enrolling in the graduate program in clinical psychology at UT. My mentor was Jamie Pennebaker, and with him I explored my interests in the mind-body connection and the use of expressive writing to heal both psychologically and physically. For my dissertation, I explored the benefits of expressive writing for adult children of divorce. I also pursued training with a wide variety of therapeutic models and populations.
Although going through graduate school twice is not something I would necessarily recommend, in my case it was exactly what I needed to do to explore my interests and end up in a profession I love. An additional benefit is that my own career experiences help me counsel others who are struggling with their own career dilemmas.
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