I was a single mother working full time at an electric company in Arizona when I started taking classes at the local community college.  Although at the time it seemed improbable, I decided to pursue my life-long dream of becoming a psychotherapist.  A workers' compensation injury presented me with the opportunity to attend school full time and two years later I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.  I obtained my Master of Science degree in counseling from Western Carolina University (WCU) in Cullowhee, North Carolina.  WCU is an affiliate institute of the University of North Carolina and it is accredited by The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).  I completed a practicum and an internship in North Carolina as part of my graduate program.  These assignments were completed at two separate agencies and provided me with invaluable experience working with individuals who have developmental, mental health, and/or chemical dependency disorders. 

    I have provided mental health and substance dependence counseling, clinical and personnel supervision, and consultation services related to behavioral health as a private practitioner and in non-profit agencies in Florida and Alaska since 1996.  In 1999 I opened a counseling practice in Inverness, Florida but one year later I was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live and work in Juneau, Alaska.  In Juneau, I was employed by Bartlett Regional Hospital (BRH), first as their mental health clinician/clinical services coordinator and later as the program director for Rainforest Recovery Center (RRC).  RRC is the hospital's dual diagnosis chemical dependency treatment program offering residential, outpatient and emergency services, including detoxification.  I retired from RRC after seven years and returned to Citrus County, Florida and reopened my counseling practice in July 2007.  I loved living and working in Juneau and I will always miss its beauty.  Besides the many wonderful experiences I had in Alaska, I was privileged to work with many talented, dedicated and caring people.  Leaving Juneau was a difficult decision for me to make, but Florida is where I was born and raised and where I feel most at home.

    I love being a therapist but counseling is not my first career.  I started out as a secretary/receptionist for an insurance adjusting firm in Glenwood Springs, Colorado and for five years I had a taste of the business of claims adjusting.  From there I went to work for an insurance agency where I learned to quote automobile and mobile home policies and finalize insurance claims.  After that, I accepted a job at the local rural electric company where I was the sole data entry clerk for the billing department.  I moved to Mesa, Arizona with my son in 1979 and worked for a rural electric company in Phoenix.  I remained employed with this company for ten years, first as a billing clerk and later as an electric meter reader.  During my employment as a meter reader, working in the intense Arizona heat for nearly nine years, a workers' compensation injury left me unable to return to that job.  What seemed like an unfortunate obstacle became an opportunity for change and what a wonderful change it has been!

Our main task in life is to give birth to ourselves...
~ Erich Fromm