Marriage and family therapy is a second career for me.  My first master’s degree is in Teaching English at the Community College Level.   I taught writing courses at Jackson Community College and Lansing Community College.  I loved teaching and especially enjoyed helping my students develop their writing voice.  My students often wrote about very challenging life events.  During office hours, I would find myself saying, “You should talk to a therapist about this.”  I realized at some point that I wanted to reach beyond my scope as a writing instructor and help people cope with the challenges life brings.  My marriage and family therapy training has provided the tools to allow me to do that, but I still believe in the healing benefit of journaling.  Now, I find myself saying to my clients, “You really should consider writing about this.”  My experience as a writing teacher has been a great complement in my education and development as a therapist. 

I completed my doctoral course work in marriage and family therapy at Michigan State University where I passed my comprehensive exams and completed my doctoral internship in 2000.  During my internship year, I was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease and told I was in the beginning stages of renal failure.  Needless to say, I lost my ambition to spend the next year in an intensive dissertation process and chose to focus on my precarious health and my family.  I saw clients on a part time basis and played with my two new grand babies born in 2002.  In 2009, I had a kidney transplant and got my life back.  I have been so grateful, both for the kidney transplant and for the life lessons learned in dealing with a debilitating chronic illness.

I began an internship with Redeemer Methodist Church in 1995 when I first began my MFT program.  It has been such a wonderful collaborative relationship that I immediately said yes when the pastor asked me to stay on past my internship.  The church provides my office space and I consider Redeemer to be my professional home.  A few years ago, Dr. Zulfiqar Ahmed opened Healthy Minds and invited me to join him.  It has been helpful to have a collaborative relationship with a psychiatrist who deals with medical aspects of mental health issues some of my clients face.  I now split my time between Healthy Minds in East Lansing and my office at Redeemer UMC in Dewitt.