ABOUT ME

I am a licensed therapist and an Infant Mental Health Specialist, Certified Educator of Infant Massage, & Infant Early Childhood Health Counselor with almost three decades of experience. I received my Master’s Degree in Social Work with a focus on Child and Family Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am a Certified Illinois Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist, Certified in Infant Massage and I served as President of the Illinois Association for Infant Mental Health for several years. I was the Director of the Fussy Baby Network through the Erikson Institute in Chicago. I come to the therapeutic relationship with passion and openness.

INFANT MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT & CARE

I have been working with families for the entirety of my career, focusing on perinatal mood disorders, the transition into parenthood, hard-to-soothe/colicky babies, and babies who don’t sleep well. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with parents with challenging babies.  Through working with these families, I have developed a communication model that started with home visiting through the Fussy Baby Network but has been useful with many different populations. The intensity and often crisis nature of my previous work provides me with the knowledge, expertise, and competence to support many different women and their families. Whether it is your first or fourth baby, adjusting to your new baby can be challenging. I am a relationship-based therapist who will work with you to build a therapeutic relationship that involves listening, hearing your story, and empathizing with your experiences as a mom.

I understand that it is not easy to be a new mom, and certainly not easy to be the mother of a “fussy” or hard-to-soothe baby. I can help you learn tools to not only soothe your baby but soothe yourself. Together, we can help you figure out how to feel like the good mother that I know you are. My years of experience, research, supervision, and the many families I have helped along the way, make me confident in the help and support I can provide to you.

 I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation to see how I can help you.  

Still feeling unsure? This complimentary screening tool is the quickest and easiest way to determine whether you are experiencing symptoms of a mental health condition.