I am a Licensed Psychologist and Licensed Specialist in School Psychology with a background in child and adolescent assessment and therapy. My current areas of expertise include assessment and treatment of Anxiety Disorders (including Selective Mutism, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Separation Anxiety, and Social Phobia), Depression/Mood Disorder, and Learning Disabilities. I also have specialized experience and training in providing therapy to children with complicated, mixed diagnostic pictures, including children with co-occurring psychopathology and developmental issues.
Prior to moving into community work, I worked as a staff psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. In addition to my work with children and families, I provided training to postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, medical students, and psychiatry fellows at the medical school.
Prior to beginning my work at Children’s, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in child psychology at the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Bradley Hospital and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. I also gained experience through numerous internship and practicum opportunities during graduate training, including Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, Dallas ISD Youth and Family Centers, Dallas ISD Department of Psychological and Social Services, Austin ISD Department of Special Education, the Austin Travis County Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and Tangram Premier (now ResCare Premier) Residential Treatment Center in San Marcos, Texas.
My interest in working with young people began as a volunteer tutor for the Neighborhood Longhorns volunteer program at UT Austin while I was majoring in Microbiology, working in a lab, and planning to be a virologist. 🙂 That volunteer experience sparked my decision to become a teacher, and after graduating, I taught high school in Austin, Texas for 5 years. That was supposed to have been a temporary gig, a little detour before returning to the lab, but those were the years of Columbine and later, 9/11, and things changed for me. As someone quite young myself, I was darkly amused at the level of responsibility that I had for supporting my students through such difficult times.
As I got to know my students, I was made acutely aware of the need for better trained mental health professionals, individuals who would not only focus on the child in front of them, but also at the environmental factors that were perpetuating the challenges that many of my students were facing. I met some incredibly resilient young people, and I was inspired.
I have now been a licensed mental health professional for over 20 years, and even after all this time, I find that I learn something from every individual I work with. Most importantly, each day that I come into the office, I try to live up to the expectations of that ambitious young teacher who wanted to make a difference.
I currently live in Plano, Texas with my husband and two children. I also have some pets and some fun hobbies. You can ask me about them sometime. 🙂