I am PhD candidate at AUNE, with a passionate interest in helping all “Couples.” I am an Imago Faculty Candidate, Certified Advanced Imago Clinician and Workshop Presenter. I earned a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from AUNE in 2012; a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School in 2005. I have worked in the field of Mental Health Profession for 30+ years with children, couples and families in, Community Mental Health, Outpatient Clinics, Hospitals, and Women’s Prison System. Over the past 14 years, I have been working exclusively with couples and I specialize in: infidelity, racial distress, intimacy, dissolving emotional conflict and marital discernment. I have worked with thousands of couples worldwide and utilize my extensive training in Systems Theory, Imago Relationship Therapy, Attachment Theory, Memory Re-consolidation & Relational Neurobiology combined with the latest in CFT research. I have presented my work with couples at the National Association for Personal and Professional Growth, RI Association for Mental Health, Imago Training & Research Institute, Imago, DC and Rhode Island College. In 2009, I co-Founded Imago Relationships-Providence, LLC which is dedicated to helping couples create an extraordinary, life-giving, relational civilization. My personal journey has endured many obstacles, loss, hardships, love, laughter, heartfelt relationality and adventure. I am a student of life on a continuous quest to practice social justice, cultural humility, emotional intelligence and mature love. I am a clinical member of AAMFT, RIAAMFT and AAPC.
Two people decide to heal, and have the power to, “bridge” the gulf of loneliness unearthed by an affair.
Weekly sessions may not be the answer. A Couples’ Intensive can be a definitive, life altering experience.
Imago Therapy can help couples grow together by using conflict as a tool to heal and grow.
We regularly hold group workshops teaching couples the tools to create better connections with each other.
Couples counseling is “like assembling an airplane in flight.” Highly stressful. Highly volatile. Potentially explosive.
So you want a skilled technician in control.
But not all counselors are trained to navigate the rough waters of a relationship in distress, and the result is more harm than good.
“Unfortunately, many therapists have not been trained to step out of the who’s-to-blame dynamic.”
While any number of social workers, psychologists and other counseling professionals can perform couples therapy — and many do it well — that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve had much experience with it or that they’ve gone through the specialized course work required of Certified Imago Relationship Therapists.
And when a therapist accustomed to treating individuals brings an individualistic approach to a couples session, it can backfire.
Unlike traditional psychodynamic therapy for individuals, the most effective couples therapy doesn’t plumb the unconscious or delve into the past or seek to identify the psycho-pathologies causing people to behave in destructive ways.
Rather, couples therapy works best when it focuses on the systemic interactions between partners—that is, how the relationship dynamics are perpetuating patterns that are driving them apart and what positive steps each person can take to change them.
As an Imago therapist I have learned to treat the system, not the symptom because if I don’t pay attention to the system, one person will feel betrayed, left out, reactive, resentful and not want to come back to therapy.
Since the 2024 election results rolled in on November 6th, I have heard many women express feelings of shock, despair, powerlessness and anger. Not only have we seen, for the first time in US history, a constitutional right taken from us—we have also watched as a collection of male sexual predators, misogynists, racists and bullies…
