Helping you navigate the path ahead.

No matter who you are or where you are, life has its challenges.  Whether you are facing a specific difficult situation, going through a hard transition, or just wanting more out of life, it can be hard to know what path to take and how to find the help, clarity, and solutions you need.

I offer practical guidance for individuals, couples, leaders, and organizations in navigating the way forward by providing support, insights, and perspectives that empower people to solve problems, get results, and achieve positive change. My chief aim is to help people create more satisfying and meaningful personal and professional lives, and to find the path that leads to a more conscious and rewarding experience.

My mission: The underlying goal of my work is to create more consciousness and self-awareness in the world. We are all, to one degree or another, hindered by the natural limits of our unconscious patterns and habits. This is just part of being human. I believe that improving our lives – both on the individual and collective level – requires us to become more aware of the unconscious coping strategies that drive us so that we can direct our lives through more conscious choices.

In my opinion, what sets apart a really good, effective therapist, teacher, or consultant is their ability to “walk the talk.” I believe one of my greatest strengths is that I have been deeply engaged in my own personal growth for many years, and I see my own self-work as a continuing, lifelong project.

My favorite method: I use the Enneagram system of personality types because I believe it is the most effective and efficient tool for accurately mapping unconscious patterns and habits. By creating a clearer picture of habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, it aids us in seeing where we are and where and how we can develop.

My Professional Biography:

I have a Ph.D. in communication and an M.A. in clinical psychology. I studied politics and the mass media at Northwestern University on the way to earning a graduate degree in communication studies. My dissertation was titled, “The Narrative Construction of Iran-contra: The Failure of Congress and the Press to Hold Reagan Accountable.” Later, when I expanded it and added a chapter on how the media was much harsher on Clinton than on Reagan, I changed the title to the more exciting, “Getting Away With It: How Reagan and His Men Covered-Up Iran-Contra by Managing the News.” I earned my MA in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Clinical Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco.

As part of my graduate studentship, I taught several undergraduate courses at Northwestern University, and I’ve also taught a little bit at CIIS and The School of Law at the University of San Francisco.

I have been working with and studying the Enneagram system of personality types for over twenty-two years, ever since it blew my mind in 1990.  I spent several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s working as a freelance writer and editor and I am currently writing a book about how to become more self-aware using the Enneagram map.

I studied the Enneagram system with Helen Palmer and David Daniels in the mid-1990s and completed their teacher certification in 1997. I also took Ginger Lapid-Bogda’s  three “Train-the-Trainers” trainings, on integrating the Enneagram into business, leadership, and coaching.

I was trained as a group facilitator at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2000 and have facilitated many “human sensitivity training groups” (or t-groups) at Stanford’s GSB and USF’s School of Law since then. Related to this work supporting business students in developing their emotional intelligence, I have worked with individuals and teams within organizations to help them communicate more effectively, understand their personnel issues more clearly, and develop their leaders and individual contributors.

I have been active in the international Enneagram community since 2003, serving as president of the International Enneagram Association (IEA) from 2006 – 2007, chairperson of the 2004 annual IEA conference, and founding co-editor of the IEA’s Enneagram Journal in 2008.

Currently, I have a psychotherapy, coaching, and business development practice based in San Francisco.  I also teach Enneagram workshops in the Bay Area.  I’ve been a therapist for 14 years and a licensed therapist for nine years.  I’ve worked with many different kinds of teams and businesses as a trainer, coach, and change consultant, including high-tech, bio-tech, marketing, health care, educational, and consultancy organizations.

More than anything else, I am passionate about helping others find their way toward consciously creating more fulfilling relationships, work, and life experiences. I believe that the only way we can make our own individual lives better and that of humanity as a whole is for each of us to work to wake up and become more conscious.  This inevitably takes work, and I am committed to helping to support people in this all-important effort.