We expatriates, immigrants, international students, returning and second generation Americans can feel enormously excited about our experiences traversing the globe. We can gain new perspectives, a sophisticated global outlook, a sense of adventure and competence and a great deal of resilience. We can also feel hot and cold about our home and host countries. We sometimes struggle to navigate family of origin values and prevailing cultural norms.  We can feel disoriented as achievements which were sources of pride at home are simply not recognized or valued in a new environment. We can find social cues and signals missed, and feel isolated as our experience diverges from those at home and also in our new setting. We can struggle to know where we "belong", while we are overseas, and also when we return home. These stressors can put pressure on our relationships. our sense of well being, and our functioning at school and at work.

I am particularly interested in acculturation, expatriate and immigrant issues and “Third Culture Kids” (those who spent significant portions of their developmental years outside their parents’ culture). I was an ethnographic researcher in the Indian Himalayas, and completed formal academic training in anthropology and the study of culture at SOAS at the University of London.  

I enjoy working with clients who are unfamiliar with therapy and for whom the unique relationship between client and therapist can be quite foreign. While I did not grow up seeing mental health care as "normal", I have come to understand therapy as a proactive and healthy opportunity that all of us can benefit from at various times in our lives -- a space to reflect on who we are and want to be, and to understand ourselves better.

I have worked in urbane expatriate communities and with development professionals working overseas, with international students, refugees, expats and local professionals, and in resource-poor settings. I have lived and worked for extended periods in Hong Kong, India, Australia and the UK as well as in Hawaii, Chicago, Boston and small-town Wisconsin in the United States. I continue to enjoy traveling and learning about the many ways that we humans make sense of the world.