ABOUT ME

I grew up in Dane County and love being able to work in my community as a mental health counselor. At the end of my 7th grade school year, the teachers handed out recognitions to each student in the class and mine was for "great empathy." I'm pretty sure I didn't know what empathy was for another 10 years, but eventually realized that I have always been a sensitive, empathetic person.

Twenty years later, I learned about the Person-Centered approach by Carl Rogers in graduate school, which encourages counselors to approach clients with "unconditional positive regard." It resonated instantly. I was inspired and thought about Carl Rogers all the way home on the city bus ride, and wrote a song about him the moment I got home! I truly care about my clients and believe that my "great empathy" and unconditional positive regard is apparent in my relationships with them.

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Following my graduation from UW-Madison with an MS in Counseling Psychology in 2011, I worked in area elementary schools as a Professional School Counselor and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Coach for 8 years. This was an amazing experience that pushed me to grow immensely and helped me to appreciate the incredible task of teaching, and the intricacies of learning. I came to love PBIS, a systematic way for students, school staff, and families to use shared language about social-emotional and behavioral concepts and expectations. This systemic approach, and the importance placed on teaching behavior as we teach other subjects, is something I will always value and share with families as much as I can.

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I then became a Licensed Professional Counselor and started my private practice LLC in 2019, desiring to work with clients in a more focused and in-depth way. I love being able to apply elements of PBIS and school experiences with child and parent clients I work with today. I was also fortunate to continue my learning as a Professional Counselor at Rogers Behavioral Health in 2019-2020 where I learned about CBT and DBT as an adult partial-hospitalization group therapist.

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Finally, I like to share with clients that I greatly value music and have been a music-maker for most of my life. I play guitar, a West African harp called n'goni, and performed in various local West African and Brazilian percussion groups since 2002. I wanted to bring together two of my passions--music and children-- and was trained as a Music Together® teacher in March of 2019. I am a licensed "Music Together Within Therapy" provider, which allows me to incorporate the Music Together curriculum into therapy with children age birth-5 to help work on a variety of therapeutic goals.

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Thank you for reading about me. I look forward to learning about YOU! :)