Growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher. I remember setting my dolls up in rows in front of a black board and "teaching." The class was very well behaved.

 

Years later, beginning my real life teaching career as a “sub” in the NYC Public Schools wasn’t quite as easy but still fun.

 

I spent the next three years helping to establish a brand new day care center in Brooklyn which housed an accredited Kindergarten. We developed all kinds of exciting and progressive programs but I began to see that I was even more interested in the the emotional needs of the children and their families than in teaching itself. My relationships to the children and parents became paramount to me.

 

I completed my Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education at NYU but with the idea of shifting gears to become a therapist.

 

At Columbia School of Social Work, I received a great clinical foundation and the opportunity to work with a wide array of individuals, adults as well as children. For the next several years, I gained more training, supervision and experience working with individuals, families and children in out-patient settings. 

 

Working with children and adolescents has always been of prime importance to me and a vital part of my practice. My initial training for child therapy was first at Columbia but more intensely at the National Institute of Psychotherapies, a three-year post graduate program in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of children and adolescents. The program deepened my understanding of psychological development and enriched my work with children and adults ten-fold.

 

My training at The National Family Resiliency Center has been invaluable in my work with children and parents going through the difficult process of separation and divorce. In fact, it’s been the inspiration for a series about divorce for young children and their parents, a project on which I am currently working.   

 

I have now been in private practice for over 30 years, working with adults, adolescents and children both individually and within the family context.