ABOUT ME
Much of my clinical acumen specific to working with children and adolescents came from extensive graduate and postgraduate training and supervision in child psychology and play therapy. I have treated troubled youths and their families at the Bergen County Department of Human Services, Division of Family Guidance, and it was for this county agency that I ultimately ran a state-funded after school treatment program for highly disturbed youths and their families. I have also run social skills programs for children with oppositional behaviors, social anxiety and ADHD, and I managed the child group therapy program at the Fairleigh Dickinson University Counseling Center.
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My training in treating eating disordered patients came from a postdoctoral fellowship at New York Presbyterian (then called Cornell Hospital), Westchester, NY. I received intensive substance abuse training during my internship and subsequent hire as a staff psychologist at the Veteran’s Hospital in East Orange. While working at the VA hospital I not only treated drug and alcohol addicted patients but helped to train psychology interns, externs, and UMDNJ medical students in the identification and treatment of addictions.
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I am trained in the application of eye movement desensitization rehabilitation (EMDR) with a primary focus on treating past trauma. Many individuals with self-harming inclinations (eating disorders, self mutilation, and substance abuse) have a significant and unprocessed trauma history. This treatment helps to not only liberate the individual from the after effects of a trauma, but also allows greater freedom to develop more adaptive coping.
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I have authored and co-authored articles and presentations on professional ethics, the detection and treatment of substance abuse, and the treatment of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In addition, I have taught as an adjunct professor within the Fairleigh Dickinson University’s General and Theoretical and School Psychology graduate programs. I have been an instructor and supervising faculty member of the New York Institute for Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology, and a past chair of the New Jersey Psychological Association's Ethic Committee. In addition, I am a member of the American Psychological Association, The New Jersey Psychological Association, the Academy for Eating Disorders, National Eating Disorders Association, EMDR International Association, The Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and am a graduate of the New York Institute for Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology as a fully certified psychoanalyst.
