My
Background
I’ve
been a Social Worker for over 20 years, graduating from Florida State
University with my first Masters degree. I practiced mostly in hospital settings or
charity organizations while raising my three kids. Not only have I
worked with extremely difficult and diverse diagnoses in mental
health and medical settings, I have experience with ADHD, OCD, Narcissism, Bipolar Disorder,
Giftedness, Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, Chronic Illness,
Alzheimer’s Disease and Autoimmune Diseases. Today, I focus on women with Anxiety and Depression who want to address changes in their mind, mood and body.
I
volunteered extensively for over a decade with a huge variety of
community organizations, from homelessness and food insecurity to
multiple sclerosis and juvenile diabetes and everything in between -
animal shelters, libraries, theaters, special needs, elderly meal
programs, foster care, child development, and more. I
volunteered with a group of educated and successful mothers and daughters, and I saw how even the most
affluent families struggle with mental health issues. I vowed that
when I returned to my Social Work practice, I would work exclusively
with women. I became a licensed therapist, as well as a board certified
coach. I am currently working on my second Master's degree in Integrative Nutrition to address the "body" side of mental health. I am constantly expanding my knowledge about women’s bodies
and minds to help them live their happiest and fullest lives
possible.
You
see, women are so much more intricately made. We have over 1000
extra genes than males, and we have over 50 complicated hormones. These tell our bodies what to do and how to feel. If they are “off”
just a little bit, it can create a cascade of chaos, which often
results in anxiety and depression. Our medical tests show everything
is normal, but we intuitively know it is not. Women are unique and
complex. We can “feel” when something is wrong within us.
We
are more likely to experience IBS and other GI related disorders and
have more autoimmunities and cognitive decline in old age. We
struggle more often with anxiety and depression. How can our health and hormones NOT be connected? Treating a woman requires understanding
of how a woman is different. I take a functional medicine approach
to mental health considering the whole person. It is my goal to find
and address your issues at the root cause whenever possible.
Only
in the last decade have researchers truly understood how important
the “gut” is to the “brain.” I have always been passionate
about good nutrition, but it’s not all about food. The
neurotransmitters made in the gut and taken to the brain are affected
by sleep, stress, exercise, food, and so much more. Yet we don’t
learn this in school, and our mother’s don’t know about it enough
to teach it to us. Self care is critical for women, yet we tend to
put everyone else first. I’ll teach you how to take the best care
of YOU.
Awareness,
understanding, empowerment, and growth are all words that describe my
work with clients and the outcomes they experience.
It
is my mission to bring integrated, wholistic, functional medicine
research and nutrition into the mental health field and to teach women how to
better serve their bodies for a lifetime of feeling better mentally.