My interest started early when I went to therapy for the first time as a child, which is something that I spoke about in my 2011 TEDx talk.
A few things had happened, namely an unexpected brain hemorrhage that my mother had when I was 7 years old, and I was fortunate to be raised by a family that understood the value of therapy and didn’t buy into the stigma.
That early experience began a lifelong love of the art, and by the time I was a senior in high school I was taking AP Psychology as an independent (I told you! Total Nerd!) and I went off to college knowing exactly what I was going to major in.
At nineteen I got my first job as a mental health worker at a local psychiatric hospital, and at twenty-one I had a job in Paris (this was after my junior year abroad) working for a French government agency that educated international law enforcement officers about the psychology of serial killers.
I took some time off in my twenties to work in the music industry in New York and to gain some overall life experience, but by the time that decade was over I was ready to go back to school; I moved to San Francisco to get my masters and doctorate from The California School of Professional Psychology.
For over a decade I worked in private practice as a therapist and a coach, both out of my office in San Francisco and around the world via phone and Zoom (or Skype) – and after covid hit I closed up shop on my San Francisco office and moved my business remotely to Los Angeles, where I’m living today.
My primary belief about the human condition can be summed up like this:
Our past experiences in life shape us, but they don’t have to define us.
With the right help, we can transform ourselves and move toward a life that we choose on our own terms.
In addition to maintaining a small private practice, I apply my professional expertise toward various creative pursuits. I have a podcast called The Nature of Nurture, and I speak to audiences about how they can thrive in an increasingly complicated world. If you would like for me to speak to your organization on this subject matter please click here for more information.
Finally, I’m on the board of One Green Thing, a nonprofit that’s devoted to treating the climate crisis as a mental health crisis, and am a shareholder in a UK film production company called Page 75 Productions which makes documentary films on topics related to mental health.