About

I am a clinical social worker in public/private practice in San Francisco. Over 15 years ago – by way of working in women’s health research, community organizing, adolescent residential treatment, and child welfare – I found my way into social work: I obtained an MSW from UC Berkeley and a PhD (in social work) from Smith College.  As a social worker, I adhere to a person-in-environment perspective, which means that I think of suffering and healing both as dependent on one’s environment and the people within in. Working from psychoanalytic and trauma-informed approaches means that I also adhere to an environment-in-person perspective, and attend to the ways in which we internalize our experiences and often unconsciously recreate them. I think a lot about the multitude of experiences that shape us – where and when we are born, by whom we are raised, how we were (or were not) understood by important others around us, how the world in which we live supports or undermines us, and how our social identities (race, gender, orientation, abledness) and positionalities shape us.

In addition to my clinical work, I advise and supervise clinicians at various levels of training, develop programs, and provide consultation to both individuals and organizations. I am affiliated with: American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, Coalition for Clinical Social Work, Reflective Spaces/Material Places
San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.  I teach in the MSW program at UC Berkeley, am the chairperson of the Coalition for Clinical Social Work, and publish and present on a range of topics related to psychodynamic social work, trauma, and social justice. You can access my CV here.