About Me:

My interest and passion for psychology began with my own personal therapy as a teen.  These visits turned out to be a life altering for many reasons and in retrospect those sessions served as the trigger for my choice to pursue a career as a therapist.  Since that time, my life’s work has been to embrace psychology as a college undergraduate and graduate school major and gain as much expertise as I could as a counselor and as a therapist myself.
 
Working in several challenging and varied environments, I have developed a well-rounded expertise as a therapist. My professional career began as a child care worker in a Level 14 Residential Treatment Center for more than 6 years, counseling youth of all ages.  These children were most often removed from their homes due to neglect and/or abuse issues.

As I gained more experience, opportunities for professional development expanded. A move to the University of California, San Diego offer a position working within a psychological research project.  As a therapist in the project, my role was to help patients make positive life style choices while engaged in experimental therapy.   Patients were characterized by their relationship with substance abuse, particularly with methamphetamine, risky sexual practices, and HIV status. In this position, I worked with and learned from individuals with addiction, terminal illness in the form of HIV, in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. This research project and the clientele were extremely challenging due to the complexity of the issues and the effects on their partners and families. 

As the UCSD project waned, I began working as a school-based therapist at the private school, the Winston School, in Del Mar, California for two years.  The Winston School is truly unique and specializes in catering to young adolescents and their families identified as having learning and emotional challenges.  The school student body spanned grades 4-12 and I worked closely with both the individual students and their families.  This proved to be a challenging and rewarding setting.  It was very rewarding to facilitate proactive changes in the students life both in and outside the school setting.

Following my Winston School experience, my wife and I relocated to Ventura, California where I have continued my role, similar to the Winston School, as a school-based therapist for the county of Ventura.  I’ve been in Ventura for the past three years.  In addition, during the past year I began working part-time in the private clinical sector focusing on individuals, couples, families and adolescents with a wide variety of needs. 

I believe that the diversity of my experiences have provided me with a valuable skill set that has shaped my professional career. I’m proud of and draw from my wide range of experiences everyday and credit those experiences with my success working with adolescences today. I cannot say enough good things about the professionals that have helped to guide me through these work experiences.  The co-workers within the UCSD research project, the Winston school, and the County of Ventura are phenomenal people who I have admired for their professionalism and therapeutic abilities.  The totality of my professional experience and caring, professional colleagues has served to bolster my skills, confidence and success as a therapist. 

My professional objectives and goals remain simple.  I want to help, enable, empower, and support people in need and give them the skills to make their own lives better and successfully meet their own goals.  

Education:

California State University, San Marcos BA Psychology
National University, MA Counseling Psychology emphasizing Marriage and Family Therapy