My Qualifications
M.Ed in Professional Counseling - The University of Georgia
B.S. in Psychology - The University of Georgia
Since earning my Master's degree in Professional Counseling from The University of Georgia (USA) in 2008, I have been working continuously in the field and regularly participate in trainings and further education programs to enhance the quality of my services.
About Me
I am a U.S. trained, native English speaking therapist in Lausanne and Nyon with over 15 years’ experience working with people from all over the world.
I provide individual counseling for adults ages 18+ using a combination of cognitive behavioral therapies such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and compassion focused therapy (CFT).
I understand that we can all have very different life experiences, priorities, hopes, concerns, and ways of seeing the world. My goal in my therapeutic work is to provide a non-judgmental and caring space in which you can feel heard and safe to express yourself and to learn the skills you need to live the life you want.
I am also passionate about understanding and aiding others going through cultural adjustment. Growing up as an expat for most of my life, I have lived in England, Portugal, Kenya, Connecticut (USA), California (USA), The Netherlands, Georgia (USA), Dubai, and now Switzerland and know first-hand the difficulties faced by individuals and families adjusting to a new country.
When it comes to my therapeutic approach, my clients and my own life transitions have had a significant impact on the way I work. Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of working with adults, teens and children of many cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds in the United States, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Switzerland, and across the world using secure online platforms.
I am part of a collective of independent therapists in downtown Lausanne, Switzerland called Lausanne Therapy Space where I work with other native English-speaking therapists. For more information about our collective and the work of my colleagues, please see our website at www.lausannetherapyspace.com
As of August 2021, I have a private counseling space in downtown Nyon, a couple minutes' walk from the train station, where I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I am also an affiliate counselor with Cancer Support Switzerland (formerly ESCA CancerSupport), a not-for-profit association based in Switzerland that provides a range of support services in English for individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer and their families. For more information about Cancer Support Switzerland's services, please visit their website at www.cancersupport.ch
With Paul Gilbert, Laura Silberstein, and Dennis Tirsch at the Association for Contextual and Behavioral Sciences annual conference
With Chris Germer at his Mindful Self-Compassion Intensive Retreat
With Hope Edelman, New York Times bestselling author of 'Motherless Daughters' at the launch of Raymee Grief Center in Dubai, UAE
With Paul Gilbert, Laura Silberstein, and Dennis Tirsch at the Association for Contextual and Behavioral Sciences annual conference
I started my work in the U.S. first, as an outpatient mental health counselor providing individual and group therapy for adults, then as the head of an inpatient crisis unit and as a mental health consultant for children, teens and adults in the emergency department of a local area hospital.
At this time, I undertook additional training in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and suicide risk assessment and focussed on using evidenced-based behavioral skills approaches to support and aid people in the management of intense emotions and in crisis situations.
My work with people in crisis, intertwined with an understanding of my own life experiences, highlighted for me how significant a role grief plays in the course of our lives. It also highlighted the importance of receiving sensitive and open-hearted support. Unfortunately, despite death and grief being universal experiences, I have found that we often struggle to understand what grief is, how it impacts us and those around us, and how to support someone who is grieving.
I attended continuing education programs in bereavement and grief counseling and became certified as an instructor to provide suicide risk assessment trainings through the QPR Institute for Suicide Prevention in the U.S. When I moved to Dubai, I was hired to develop the first grief center in the Middle East, which I then coordinated for close to five years until moving to Switzerland.
In addition to working with grieving individuals, families, and school communities through the grief center, I continued to provide individual counseling to adults and teens. To deepen my work with my clients, I furthered my study of areas within DBT such as emotion regulation and mindfulness and developed my own sitting meditation practice.
Prompted by themes that emerged while working with my clients, I also began an ongoing study of compassion-based approaches such as Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), which combines a number of areas including evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience to help us gain a better understanding of our brains, our emotions and impulses, and how to better care for ourselves and others.