Education & Training

I am a Harvard and UCLA trained psychologist with over 20 years of experience treating borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety, and trauma in teenagers and adults. My training began at the Gunderson Borderline Personality Disorder Program at McLean Hospital, where I worked with young adults dealing with severe emotional instability and self-harming behaviors. My internship was completed at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, where I worked therapeutically with adolescents grappling with serious emotional and behavioral issues. My postdoctoral fellowship was concluded at UCLA, where I received specialized training in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) as well as psychological and neuropsychological assessment.

Clinical Specialty

I specialize in DBT, a highly effective and practical approach for treating conditions such as borderline personality disorder, PTSD, anxiety, depression, suicidal behaviors, non-suicidal self-injury and autism spectrum disorders. I completed a two-year DBT postdoctoral fellowship as well as several comprehensive and intensive Behavioral Tech Advanced Trainings, including DBT Prolonged Exposure Protocol and DBT with Multi-Problem Adolescents. I am also trained in Radically-Open DBT and the Gottman Method.

I serve on several expert panels providing consultation on DBT and evidence-based practices and am part of a comprehensive DBT program, developed and researched by Marsha Linehan, PhD. 

I completed my research, dissertation and post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA where I examined atypical local (detail) and global (big picture) processing and interventions for over-controlled clinical populations, including autism spectrum disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and eating disorders. As an Associate Professor at UCLA, I presented my research at numerous national and international conferences, including the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I have also published in several peer-reviewed psychiatric and clinical psychology journals.