I primarily practice Internal Family Systems therapy. I believe that IFS therapy embodies a more humane way of helping clients than more traditional models of therapy. Many older models work from the premise that the client has symptoms of sickness, such as intrusive thoughts, painful feelings, or problematic behavior that must be fixed or eliminated so that the client can then be healthy. IFS, in contrast, believes that we all have protective parts that try to cope with challenging and painful situations in childhood and adulthood. These parts have good intentions to protect us, even though their attempts to cope can result in difficulties with thoughts, feelings and behaviors. When clients can understand and accept the good intentions of protective parts they are better able to deal with them without the
feelings of shame or beliefs that they are not good enough. Clients can
approach their issues as a way of learning about themselves and healing their wounds rather than viewing themselves as damaged or sick.

My background includes working in a number of medical facilities as well as private practice. In addition to working in the Pediatric Department of Henry Ford Hospital, doing my doctoral dissertation on hospitalized children’s understanding of their illness and treatment, I also worked at the Northeast Ohio College of Medicine as an adjunct faculty teaching medical students. I was the behavioral scientist for the Youngstown Hospital Family Practice residency where I taught medical residents psychological issues in medical care.