Background

Education and Licensing:

I obtained a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Santa Clara University, California in 2007. My undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Special Education and Learning Disabilities with a minor in Psychology from Quincy University, Illinois.

I am a state-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#MFC52578) with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) and am a member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT).

Experience:

I have been in the field of counseling since 1999 when I volunteered and then worked at Maitri, a south Asian agency helping victims of domestic violence, family conflict, and cultural displacement. I began as a peer counselor before working on the hotline answering emergency and distress calls for a few years. I have run support groups and counseled clients at Maitri for many years and continue to do so today.

During the process of studying for my counseling degree, I spent four years at the Community Health Awareness Council in Mountain View, California. While at CHAC, I was placed at an elementary school for two years and a middle school for one year where I collaborated with parents and teachers, helping children work through various issues, such as improving social skills, impulsivity, and self-esteem, coping with grief and loss, family conflict, parental separation, and divorce. I led age-appropriate groups for children on the topic of drugs and alcohol. Outside the school atmosphere, I worked with teens involved in gangs and dealing with substance abuse.

Over the years, I have worked with adult clients of various ethnicities to deal with different issues: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, inter-personal relationships, family conflicts, anger management, parenting, life transitions, assertiveness, and loss, to name a few.