About Me

First of all, thank you for looking at my website and getting this far. Below is a listing of my credentials. But first I’m going to tell you a bit about how I got to where I am today. I attended Boston University for undergraduate school, and during a hiatus, I began working in the Children's Unit of Walter E. Fernald School in Belmont Massachusetts, a long-term residential facility for people with serious developmental disabilities. A short time after I began working there, Dr. Bruce Baker and his team from Harvard University took over management of the Children’s Unit and began doing early research in the area of behavior modification.  I was invited to become a member of their team and worked with developmentally delayed children to develop skills, and was later chosen to be among a select group of trainers to help parents learn methods for using behavior modification. About a year later, an Occupational Therapist (OT) was brought in and began teaching the children self-care skills, such as dressing and feeding. These children began to have a sense of self efficacy and dignity and I was hooked. I decided to become an occupational therapist, and was very lucky that I was admitted into Boston University’s occupational therapy program, which is and was one of the top occupational therapy programs in the US (ranked #1 again in 2020 by US News and World Report).  While in OT school, I was awarded a federal grant to provide OT services in a “Model City” preschool and provided therapy to preschool children there.

My first job after OT school was at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in NYC.  I worked there first as a staff member and later as the director of a day program for children on the autism spectrum who were at Bellevue as part of a research study.  After a few years, I began working in the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital Therapeutic Nursery/Preschool for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. A few years after that, I became very interested in the new field of learning disabilities, and the work being done at New York University Hospital in that field. After attending numerous workshops and lectures provided by the staff of the Learning Disorders Unit of New York University Hospital, I was hired to do research and assessments for children with learning disabilities. While working there, I decided to pursue my doctorate in psychology at New York University.

While I was in graduate school (an 18 year process!)  I married, became a step mom, had a child and spent three years being a full time mom before returning to my studies. During my years in graduate school, I worked at a public elementary school, a school for children with learning disabilities, and a school for children with multiple handicapping conditions, all while maintaining a part time occupational therapy private practice.

After I finished my graduate school program at NYU in Child and School Psychology, I did a full time, one-year internship in the children’s unit of the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, a psychoanalytic training institute in New York City. My doctoral dissertation was on attachment, specifically, the family bed. After graduating from New York University with a Ph.D, I taught a graduate courses at the New Jersey City University and established a private practice in New Jersey in both child psychology and pediatric occupational therapy. Because of my unique dual license, over a 20 year period, I was asked to serve as an expert witness in over 40 forensic cases across the United States, assessing the functional and psychological effects of disabilities on children.  In 1997, while still in New Jersey, I limited my private practice to child psychology; however, I continued to do occupational therapy consulting nationally. In 2001, I relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, where I had a busy child psychology practice. 

I moved to Marin County in 2017 so that I could live closer to my young grandchildren. I opened a child psychology practice in Corte Madera, California in July of 2017.  Today I am privileged to continue to provide therapy for children under the age of 12 and their families in Corte Madera.