Licensed Clinical Psychologist, PMH-C; Pediatric, Family, Couple, and Family Formation Specialist
My goal is to help you build a more satisfying life by creating long-lasting change and resilience. I am results-oriented. Many clients and parents report significant change in 4-8 sessions. Please see my personal website for success stories. I work with clients from many different walks of life and provide comprehensive psychotherapy services for adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families. My approach is collaborative, understanding, and caring, as well as evidence-based. I use a state-of-the art outcome assessment to ensure that your counseling is effective and individualized.
I am able to assess and treat a wide variety of difficulties you may be experiencing that have led you to seek supportive and compassionate care. My specialties include treating a wide variety of problems that couples, children, and families experience, including reproductive/family formation issues and clinical disorders. I work extensively with anxiety disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and other compulsive disorders like Trichotillomania and Excoriation Disorder, depressive disorders, and life transitions such as the transition to parenthood (through biology, adoption, foster parenting), parental and spousal death, divorce, and re-locations.
I am particularly well-equipped to assess and treat issues surrounding reproduction and family formation, including: adoption, mental health needs common to those who entered their families through adoption, trans-racial families formed through adoption, choosing to start a family/remain child-free, perinatal grief (special needs, still-birth, loss of child), infertility, miscarriage, postpartum concerns, pre-marital counseling, post-partum mental health, reproductive decisions, transition to parenthood, twins and multiples and diverse ways of forming families. I am a Certified Perinatal Mental Health Professional. My doctoral work was primarily related to family formation and mental health, I am internationally awarded by the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology in 2012 for my doctoral thesis work, have taught Reproductive and Family Formation Psychology, and have spent the majority of my career interfacing with the ways in which families are formed and maintained affect wellbeing.
Please see my personal website regarding my exclusive approach for families: The Harmonizing Your Home Program. I am known affectionately as the "Family Systems Surgeon" and specialize in on-site (in-home and in-school) behavioral analysis and restructuring child disruptive behavior and other problems such as anxiety and depressive disorders. I emphasize developing a warm, connected parent child bond as well as developing parenting skills in setting firm boundaries and limits. As a scholar-practitioner, I will not treat a child if parents are unwilling to also be treated. Parent training is imperative to treating problems that children have and has been the cornerstone of my success in treating children and families.
Testing
Pediatric
I also specialize in neuropsychological assessments for children as young as 3 years old through 18. At AMANI Clinical Services, we believe in a comprehensive assessment approach which considers the importance of multiple contexts in understanding the child’s behaviors, emotions, and needs. I have voluminous experience with typically developing children across many cultures (e.g. I was the #8 ranked babysitter on SitterCity.com out of 50,000+ sitters for many years and I have worked and interacted significantly with children living on other continents) in addition to my extensive clinical experience here in the United States. My diverse and vast experiences are significant assets which aid in my neuropsychological assessment process.
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Neuropsychological, emotional, social, and intellectual developmental assessment for differential diagnosis.
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Children and adolescents ages 3 and over.
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We specialize in differential diagnosis and use evidence-based assessment measures and practices to assess various pediatric disorders (e.g. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Learning Disabilities, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and behavior disorders).
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We observe the primary contexts the child exists within (home and school) to determine that symptoms are in fact legitimate pathology rather than a function of the environment. A systemic analysis helps to determine where undesirable behaviors are being reinforced so parents and teachers can be trained to stop reinforcing them and begin reinforcing the behaviors they do want.
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We provide parents and treating physicians with a thorough battery data analysis and a solid treatment plan (according to patient authorization to release information).
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Giftedness and 2E (Twice Exceptional: children that are gifted and with a learning, neurodevelopmental, and/or emotional disability)
Adult
I provide psychological evaluations for those that are involved in forming their families or helping others to form their families with the assistance of third-party reproduction (oocyte and sperm donors and recipients; embryo donors and recipients). I also assess adults for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and a variety of other neuropsychological and diagnostic questions. Lastly, I provide testing for the sunset years of life to assess memory and neuropsychological functioning.
Additional Information
For more information on my research program Choosing the Childfree or Parenting Lifestyle (CCOPL), my publications and awards, and my consultation work in Tanzania at the Ilula Orphan Program, please see my personal website.
As A Person...
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years,” (Abraham Lincoln). If any quote captures my philosophy on life, it is the aforementioned one. I strive to help clients to live life which is not controlled by their difficulties. I am deeply moved by the experience of helping my clients to overcome their challenges and helping them to really live.
I strongly believe in work-life balance. In my free time, I enjoy crafts, cooking, running with my Huskies, biking, hiking, traveling and immersing myself in new cultures, sailing, reading, and watching movies. My loved ones refer to me as "feral," and it's true-I feel most connected to myself when I'm outdoors. My life is enriched by the laughter shared and memories made with my most beloved husband, daughter, daughter-like niece, close friends, and family. I feel strongly about social justice and volunteering to serve individuals and communities that have less access to resources, such as orphaned/foster children, widows, and those that live in poverty. I am dedicated to constantly assessing how my whiteness impacts my perspective and to righting the problems which result from my presence in majority culture. I love supervising and training-just as I am honored to watch every adult, teen, child, family, and couple I work with blossom, I cherish the opportunity to help professionals develop into their best selves and increase the number of professionals fluently serving children, their families, and couples.
She/her/hers
Adoptee-specific needs throughout the lifespan: I center the voices and experiences of adoptees.
Children: pediatric behavior problems (e.g. oppositional behavior), anxiety symptoms (obsessive-compulsive, separation, social, etc.), depressive symptoms (e.g. persistent depression), toileting problems, sleeping problems, and trauma-related/grief-related problems (e.g. parents divorcing, death).
Bonding problems that sometimes occur between parents and their children
Couples in distress: Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and Gottman Method
Giftedness
High-achieving professionals and entrepreneurs, and a high proportion of these professionals are physicians.
Problematic co-parenting relationships
I am internationally awarded, published, and an Adjunct Professor in the area of Reproductive and Family Formation Psychology. I work extensively with infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, adoption, and perinatal and post-partum mental health issues. I am a Certified Perinatal Mental Health Professional (PMH-C) I also focus on the way the pre-family formation story (e.g. how families came to be) impacts current functioning. I also work with families and individuals with diverse family formation stories, such as children and adult children who are adjusting to information about how they entered their families (e.g finding out about having been adopted, embryo/egg/sperm donation, IVF, etc.)
Trauma in children and adults
I frequently treat adults with various anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Neuropsychological testing: pediatric and adult
