Professional Background:

2015-2018:

Chronic pain and illness has been my clinical specialty since 2015 when I began working as a Behavioral Health Consultant within the Integrated Care team at North Range Behavioral Health and Sunrise Community Health in Greeley, CO. Integrated care looks at the whole person, taking into account all facets of life from a bio-psycho-social perspective. It also focuses on promoting health and wellness and prevention, not just treatment of illness after the fact. Working side-by-side with primary care providers and psychiatrists in this role early in my career, I was able to act as a bridge between the two worlds to help patients find long-lasting transformation in their mental and physical health for holistic wellness.

I came into this role at height of the opioid epidemic when the FDA and CDC were forcing prescribers to limit opioid doses, resulting in chaos, fear, and desperation for those who had relied on these medications for pain relief. In response, I participated in leading the development of a holistic pain management program for our community, alongside the medical director and primary care providers at Sunrise, and a few of my colleagues on the integrated care team. This program included weekly group therapy, teaching people alternate ways to manage stress and lifestyle to find relief while stepping down from high doses, individual counseling to those interested in doing trauma work and more directly addressing the role of mental health in their pain experiences, and helping people connect to supportive resources in the community to increase stability and wellbeing.

At the same time, on the other side of the coin, there was an abundance of people suffering with physical and psychological dependence on opioids who needed detox and intensive outpatient treatment to enter recovery. To meet this need, I helped with the expansion and development of the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program for opioid and alcohol addiction on the North end of Greeley at the NRBH main center, coordinating with and acting as lead therapist for that program for two years until transitioning to private practice. With this came additional complexity in treatment, not only helping people come off and stay off opioids out of necessity due to addiction, but also having to find ways to manage pain, working to heal on multiple fronts. Along with colleagues, I spoke on a panel at the Colorado Behavioral Health Conference in Breckenridge in 2017 to share our work with colleagues across the state with the hope of informing development of similar recovery programs founded on an integrated holistic approach. This work was very meaningful to me and I knew there were so many people out there who needed a new kind of support, inspired to be a part of this emerging integrated health revolution.

2018-2023:

After leaving NRBH in 2018, I became co-owner of Polaris Partners Counseling and Consulting in Fort Collins from 2018 through 2022, helping expand and grow this group practice to reach and meet the the needs of our community, as well as started and co-owned the Fort Collins Humanly Franchise to support other colleagues in private practice to bring their work to the community and grow their practices.

All the while, I have built and grown my own full-time practice around chronic pain and illness, offering individual and group counseling. I have spoken to colleagues at therapist networking events about best practices in working with chronic conditions from a holistic, integrated, compassionate, and trauma-informed approach. I am also currently developing a training program and courses for colleagues to learn in more detail how to get into this work, as there is a high need for mental health professionals who understand the complexities of chronic conditions, and can more effectively meet the needs of those they serve. In 2022, I stepped away as co-owner of Polaris Partners, and in 2023, stepped away as co-owner of Humanly Fort Collins in order to devote my time, energy, and attention to chronic pain and illness work, education and clinical consultation, and also to prepare for the birth of my daughter in 2024.

2023-present

Turning this corner into a whole new life as a mom, educator, and consultant, I unlocked another level of breadth and depth in my clinical practice, as well.  This next chapter is all about building community and sharing my gifts and experience with others who want to also step into this work. Passionate about contributing to the greater good, efforts in building clinical consulting and community support will help us achieve future goals of community funded mutual aid, offering the highest trauma treatment and quality care to those who cannot afford or access it, especially those raising children, to help create a system that supports us all across the lifespan. I seek to be a vessel to serve to the utmost.

As a cisgender, queer, white woman from a low-working class family, with a history of mental health challenges including addiction, I am constantly tuning into my identities and seeking ways to grow through conditioned white supremacist, patriarchal, and capitalist ideals, participating humbly and whole-heartedly in decolonizing therapy and tearing down barriers to care, shifting the paradigm of mental health care to be that of communal, natural, and ancient embodied healing practices.

Personal Passion:

My passion for working with chronic pain and illness has deep roots in my personal life. I have an intimate understanding of what it is to suffer when wrapped up in a complex web of mental and physical illnesses. Personally, I live with psoriatic arthritis, POTS, TMJ, and chronic low back and hip pain. I also have a history of trauma, mental health challenges, and substance abuse. I grew up witnessing my father suffering from extreme symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and poor general health for many years, leading to a devastating massive heart attack and death at age 56. Others in my family also experienced poor health and addictions and I saw up-close and personal how mental, emotional, and physical health are all interconnected. I know what it is to be up against societal and cultural challenges to health and I understand the socio-economic barriers to wellness including history of personal and inherited trauma, food insecurity, inability to engage in healthy behaviors, and lack of access to quality healthcare. I have no doubt my own physical health challenges are related to the emotional and mental stress and pressures of the family I came from and the culture I exist within. I am now actively working to break generational cycles of poor health within my own life and by walking alongside family members in their mission to do the same.

Make no mistake, I recognize most illness and disease is inherited/genetic, AND there are very real environmental and epigenetic factors that serve to bring about and also exacerbate the effects of disease. Please see my blog for more on this, discussing the scientific basis for these assertions, and my work in healthcare innovation emphasizing a focus on whole-health.