After a 40-year career as a child, marriage, and family therapist in California, I packed up the dog and cat and moved to Italy, where I bought a small olive farm.
Today I use that experience in my coaching. Coaching isn’t therapy — I don’t diagnose or treat mental illness. It’s practical work: setting goals, building tools, and moving forward.
My work with people started long before my career. While I was in high school, I volunteered in a class for children with Down syndrome and at a care facility for the elderly.
In 2000, I founded a counseling agency in rural Northern California and ran it as manager, clinical director, and therapist for 17 years. We treated child abuse, anxiety, depression, neurodivergence, ADHD, learning disabilities, trauma and PTSD, and profound grief.
We built parent-training programs for blended, foster, and adoptive families. I wrote grants and was awarded more than one million dollars over those years to treat child victims of crime and abuse. I was also named a specialist in Family Court and Criminal Court, and consulted with social workers, probation officers, judges, and treatment programs.
Over my career I worked with thousands of people, ages 3 to 85, from every walk of life — including bikers from rough motorcycle gangs, the California Highway Patrol, sheriff’s deputies, and angry teens. I’m proud that those clients referred their friends and associates to me.
