I was born and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and received my bachelor’s degree from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. I received my master’s degree in substance abuse counseling in White Plains, New York and earned my doctoral degree at the San Francisco Bay Area campus of the American School of Professional Psychology. I love to read, garden, and work with clay and fibers. I live on Penobscot Bay and use the power of the sea to recharge my batteries on a daily basis.

I have been interested in parenting issues for many, many years, i.e., adoption, step-parenting, biological expectations. As the mother of a special needs, adopted, son (34 years old), with a long and painful history of addiction and mental health issues; a creative and liberal step-son (38 years old), who has traveled a life-path that both encourages and supports his boatbuilding and engineering talents; and a high achieving, empathic, and socially responsible, biological daughter (26 years old); I have been personally, academically, and professionally involved in the nature vs. nurture issue for nearly forty years. I have watched with awe as my children have navigated the expectations of the outside world while melding their gifts, talents, deficits and fears, into a strong and supportive team for each other – accepting and honoring the ways in which they support each other and gallantly rejecting the notion that they are anything but, solidly family – from different universes for sure, but more alike than different in their love and support for each other.

Recently, my adopted son, looked for and found his biological family. With my complete and unflinching support, he is now exploring the emotional terrain of this discovery. We talk about issues of temperament; he tries to articulate what it means to “look like” another person and to see yourself through those biologically connected eyes where there is no written history. My children are working together to integrate their feelings without words, trying to put the word “FAMILY” into a workable model for themselves and sharing that model with me. I like to think that this life experience helps my professional work as I strive to help families at Ironwood find their way back to each other.