what i do best

As with all the clinicians at Brown Psychological, OCD and anxiety disorders are an area of primary focus, and I do a lot of work in these areas.

I can assess for, diagnose, and treat OCD and enjoy working with folks with OCD of many different subtypes. I also work with social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, and other anxiety disorders.

I have experience working with trauma, particularly PTSD.  I have primarily treated PTSD in people having experienced sexual violence, medical trauma, and in veterans with combat exposure.

Good sleep interventions starts with careful assessment. I am passionate about the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues that cause sleep problems, particularly because I have helped many people who do have insomnia, but I also see a lot of people who believe they have insomnia, but on careful exploration actually have another diagnosis impacting their sleep that they weren’t aware of.

I have a significant interest in treating sleep problems, and many of the conditions I work with have related sleep issues including sleeping too much, sleeping too little, trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, insomnia, and nightmares.

I completed a master’s degree in clinical psychology and behavior analysis, and in a sense, most of the areas I work in involve working with clients who want specialized help because they are doing too much of something (like compulsions or other problem behaviors) or too little of something (like sleeping or other valued activities).

Because of this experience I work well with people who may be doing “too much of a good thing” (e.g. stable addiction to nicotine, alcohol, or cannabis, or behaviors such as problem internet or social media use, pornography use, binge eating, video games, or gambling).  My master's thesis investigated the functions of prescription stimulant abuse among college students, and my PhD dissertation evaluated support of a reinforcement based model of addiction for identifying co-occurring depression and alcohol use during COVID-19. 

I have lots of experience working with people who have mental health concerns co-occurring with chronic or acute medical issues like diabetes or cancer. I did supervised clinical training in primary care clinics, integrated academic medical centres, and specialty health centres in sleep medicine, spinal cord injury, addiction, oncology, and palliative care. 

Many of the people I see are also neurodivergent, with known or suspected ADHD or Autism.

I see many people looking for evidence based and targeted ADHD treatment.

I work with many people who have been diagnosed with Autism or who suspect they may be Autistic. While we aren’t working on reducing Autistic traits, I’m a good fit for Autistic people looking for help in the other areas I work in, such as OCD and anxiety disorders.