• Safety

• Empowerment

• Imagination

• Integrity

• Creativity

• Joy

Current endeavors:

• Completing requirements toward a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist credential

• Completing requirements toward an Advanced Certificate in Dissociation Studies for EMDR Therapists

Past therapy experience:

• School-based therapeutic social work across an elementary, middle, and high school in a rural setting

• Advocate in a college setting

• Short-term therapist for survivors of domestic violence

• Short-term therapist at a university counseling center

• Intensive behavioral health therapist for children and their families in home, school, and community contexts

Before becoming a therapist, I grew into my writing chops while earning a BFA in Creative Writing from Penn State Behrend, where my dogged sense of hope, love for lyrical storytelling, and radical marriage to the imagination took root. After college, I worked many jobs: as a caregiver employed by folks with various disabilities; as a manager of a group home; as a lead teacher at a preschool; and as an instructor of survival swimming lessons for kids and adults.

I’m happy to talk (at length) about the ways in which my past professional experiences laid the groundwork for the work that I do now — please ask!

I grew up in the shade of tall pine trees in rural northwestern PA.

As a kid, I dissolved into other worlds through reading. I wrote poems in crayon by nightlight, climbed pine trees, splashed in large bodies of water, collected white wishing stones, picked tiny sun-warmed strawberries from the farmer’s field across the road, & spent a great deal of time playing with imaginary friends alone.

A significant portion of my adolescence was lived on the internet. I built personal websites by learning HMTL, wrote fanfiction, published my poems and journal entries on websites like LiveJournal and Diaryland, and logged many hours exposing myself to new music via pirating programs like Napster and Limewire. When I unplugged from my computer, I retreated to the woods, where I studied the shape and texture of various mosses, photographed wildflowers, trespassed into empty fields, and daydreamed my way through the great loneliness I experienced.

I spent my late teens through my mid-thirties lost & fumbling as I tried to dampen, mute, and extinguish the cacophonous ricochet of inner thoughts.

I survived a great deal. I survive it, still.

In my spare time, I curate my houseplants into an indoor jungle; collect a robust menagerie of stray cats; explore & understand my inner landscape by toodling around with watercolor paints; delight in my environment by lining up & color-organizing household objects & rearranging furniture; cultivate mindful presence by photographing sunbeams filtering through cloud-cover; and expand into a sense of safety & peace by laying on the floor under my galaxy light while listening to tunes that make my brain hum & sparkle.

My goals in life:

• Own a bathtub in which I can soak on a daily basis

• Whisper to bees

• Grow a messy & abundant garden of patty pan squash, tiny strawberries, & symphonies of wildflowers

• Master’s degree in Social Work (2020, California University of Pennsylvania)

• Certificate of Expressive Arts Therapy (2021)

• Trained in EMDR (2022)

• Licensed Clinical Social Worker credential (2023)

  • Pennsylvania

  • Virginia

• Business owner (2024)