Education

My journey in the healing arts began with my first degree Reiki attunement in 1996. I completed my second degree Reiki training in 2004, and received my third degree training and master attunement in 2010. All of my Reiki attunements have followed the Usui System of Natural Healing (Usui Shiki Ryoho).

I became a massage therapist in 1999 after graduating from the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I completed an intensive 750-hour program of study. I opened a private practice in Philadelphia in 2004, and was privileged to be a guest lecturer on the topics of massage and energy work at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2012, I realized that women who had been impacted by trauma of one kind or another had gradually become a significant portion of my client base. I decided to pursue bodywork training specific to treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and completed a one hundred-hour certification in Trauma Touch Therapy (TTT) in June of 2014. An offshoot of the somatic psychotherapy movement that originated in Boulder, Colorado, TTT addresses the ways in which stress and trauma are held in the body, and assists clients in releasing it. From that point forward, working with women recovering from trauma became the primary focus of my practice, and remained so until I closed my business in 2015 in order to relocate to Guilford, CT.

Soon after arriving in Guilford, I began a two-year course of study in Celtic Shamanism with Jane Burns. This program allowed me to understand the ways in which the soul is impacted by trauma, and dovetailed beautifully with the body-oriented approaches I had long been practicing. I am a certified Shamanic Practitioner in the Celtic tradition, and am currently studying Norse shamanism.

I earned my MS in in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Southern Connecticut State University in December of 2021, and am a Licensed Professional Counselor Associate (LPCA) in the state of Connecticut. I have received additional training in the trauma recovery and empowerment model (TREM), psychological trauma and trauma-informed care, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), and treating domestic and intimate partner violence.