Professional: As noted in other pages on this website, I am a licensed psychologist in Madison, WI, and I specialize in individual therapy and marital and relationship counseling. I see people for a wide range of problems, and have been in practice for over 20 years.
There is a lot of overlap between this work with the Family Medicine residents, and my psychotherapy work with clients. I try to help the residents be more "psychotherapeutic" in their "medical" work: There is lots of research that demonstrates that the quality of the doctor-patient relationship and of the physician's listening skills are related to patient satisfaction and health outcomes (as well as physician satisfaction with their work!). At the same time, I get lots of experience observing (i) a more "medical" approach to mental health problems (i.e., medication); (ii) the two-way connection between stress and physical symptoms/illness; and (iii) the challenges patients have with their medical doctors (and vice versa!), especially patients who have chronic and/or medically unexplained conditions. This helps me with clients in my therapy practice who have such problems. Click here to view a Powerpoint presentation I presented to the residents about doctor-patient communication.
Education: PhD: University of Colorado, Boulder. BA: Princeton University.
Personal: I'm originally from New York City, and I still have family there and love to visit. I spent my graduate school years in Boulder, Colorado (a wonderful, beautiful place!), and I've lived in Madison now for over 20 years. I'm married and have two young adult children. In my free time, I enjoy bicycling, cross country skiing, spending time at the beach (Cape Cod, Big Sur, and Hawaii are favorites; and I love snorkeling and scuba diving on occasional trips to the Caribbean), and traveling.