My journey to becoming a performance psychology practitioner was influenced by my experiences as a musician. As a student (and beyond, I must admit), I spent WAY too much time in the practice room, expecting results from how much I practiced rather than deep, intentional, and thoughtful practice. My performance experiences were often approached with anxiety and dread rather than excitement, and much effort was spent trying to quiet my inner critical voice which was quick to berate me for shortcomings. 

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After 30 years of teaching and performing as a professional pianist, I returned to graduate school for mental health counseling. Through my work as a therapist with clients suffering from anxiety, depression, and trauma I have learned about how to regulate the nervous system to respond adaptively to stress and challenge. I've discovered how formative childhood experiences, including early attachment disruptions, shape how our nervous system has developed to respond to stress. How adaptively we respond to stress can impact our confidence and belief in our capacity to handle pressure and the challenges that performance and life bring. Working through these early experiences and rewriting unhelpful narratives is empowering!  

 

Getting back to my roots as a musician I headed overseas to pursue postgraduate studies in Performance Psychology. This is the stuff I wished I had learned back in my teens! Here I learned from other branches of psychology, such as educational and sports psychology, about how to optimize learning and develop the psychological skills necessary to achieve peak performance.

 

The breadth of training and lived experience allows me to meet you where you are. Whether you are looking to push to a new level of performance, manage anxiety, overcome depression, prevent burnout, or unburden yourself from the effects of trauma, I would be honored to come alongside you to provide support and guidance.