Education and Experience
I am an alum of the Wright Institute in Berkeley where I earned my Psy.D. in 2016. My practica over the course of training included: the Institute on Aging in SF; Kaiser Permanente in Richmond working primarily with children; UCSF/Alliance Health Project, working with both HIV+/- individuals of the LGBTQQI community. I also served as a research assistant as part of the Mental Activity and eXercise (MAX) Trial, a SF Veteran's Administration and UCSF collaborative study exploring the impact of exercise and mental activity on mitigating cognitive decline in elders. I trained in psychodynamic and analytic clinical work as a 2-year pre-doctoral intern at Access Institute in San Francisco, a community mental health clinic. Finally, I was a post-doctoral intern at Holy Names university, serving a diverse student population in the Counseling and Psychological Services Center. I have also been a Psychological Assistant to Adam Bedya, Psy.D., growing my practice in both Hayes Valley in San Francisco, and Rockridge in Oakland.
My dissertation focused on identity development in gay males as influenced by a melancholic identification with the lost object of the father, and how cinema could offer a venue in which aprés coup mourning could take place.