Biography

Hello! My name is Doc J, and I am a clinical psychologist providing teletherapy to US + international residents. I take a holistic approach to psychological care, meaning I see you as a whole person rather than as a set of symptoms and believe that our emotional, physical, and spiritual health must all be attended to when seeking to grow and heal. While many practitioners focus on symptoms and tend to specialize in one or two distinct clinical disorders,

I simply specialize in people.

While a lot of today’s advertising would have us believe that each mental health conditon is a completely separate “disorder” that needs a different type of treatment, the truth is that most conditions are connected and complex. As a holistic practitioner, I do not ascribe to the disease model of mental health that reduces human suffering and experience to a biological illness. Rather than artificially split off symptoms and treat them each individually as if they are something to quickly be gotten rid of, I instead view symptoms as messengers that are attempting to communicate something about your internal world and where your life is out of balance.

A good psychotherapy explores your life with care from all sides and takes what your symptoms have to say seriously. That message may be that you are not attending to something that is part of your emotional world, but it may also be a message that you are nutritionally deficient or that your daily life habits are creating distress for you. Once the message has been received and articulated, symptoms tend to dissolve.  

I am driven by a desire to help people expand and create joyful lives that feel in tune with their values and desires. Our work together will be grounded in the core values of integrity, directness, humility, personal accountability, and mutual respect. While my approach is always rooted in compassion, I will challenge you when necessary and support you as you do the hard work of evoking the change you want in your life.

Education + Training:

I hold a Master’s degree and PhD in Clinical Psychology from Duquesne University. Additionally, I hold a Master’s degree in Health Education from the University of Texas at Austin with specializations in mindful awareness and women’s health. I began my career volunteering at UCLA’s OCD program spearheaded by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz. Dr. Schwartz’s groundbreaking research and clinical approach to treating OCD focused on how the mind can actually change the brain’s neural circuitry through mindful awareness, effectively rewiring the brains of OCD sufferers. I then went to work at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center exploring how mindfulness could help children and adults suffering with ADHD. Both of these early experiences made me question the disease paradigm of mental illness that says we are simply victims of our genetics and believes pills are the only answer. The research we were doing at UCLA in the early 2000s (that has since been borne out by countless studies) showed definitively that we have the power to change our brain structures and circumstances through modifying our habits, changing the way we think, and by engaging in embodied practices. How empowering to know we are not simply victims of our genetics!

I decided I wanted to be part of spreading this word to people convinced they would be sick forever because they believed they were passive recipients of bad genes. Psychology programs were all teaching the disease model of mental illness, so I pursued a Master’s in Health Education thinking this would be the more integrative path. While I was excited to attend my Master’s program as it seemed to be rooted in an integration of mind and body, it too, ended up primarily emphasizing the physical at the expense of the mental and spiritual. Two wonderful things came from the experience though: 1) It further solidified my belief in the profound connection of the mind and body, and 2) I got the opportunity to assist Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field of self-compassion studies. (Sometimes, making the seemingly “wrong” choice allows us to really know what is “right”,)

It was then that I discovered the world-renowned human science approach to clinical psychology that was being taught at Duquesne University. This was a program rooted in the core belief that we could not treat human beings according to the medical disease model precisely because of the complexity of the human experience. Duquesne emphasized psychology as a human science rather than as a physical one and did not attempt to isolate humans from the world around us. It taught that, in order to be able to be a good psychologist, you needed to study the human condition, not just the brain. My program thus not only consisted of clinical work, it consisted of years of philosophy studying the existential questions and experiences of people. It was also heavily psychoanalytic, allowing me to really delve into how our early childhoods repeat themselves throughout our lives when not appropriately processed. During graduate school, I also discovered yoga and breathwork, and this was a game changer as well for how I believe we can best work with our chaotic minds.

The combination of these various fields: embodied mindfulness, psychoanalysis, philosophy, health education, yoga, and clinical work have provided me a wonderfully rich understanding of and approach to what it means to be human and where humans get stuck.

Throughout my education and professional career, I have worked in hospitals, community clinics, skilled nursing facilities, palliative care, crisis centers, universities, and in private practice. I am honored to have had so many opportunities to work with such a wonderfully diverse array of people from all walks of life, as these experiences have taught me the ethic of meeting each person where they are and as they are.

A Few Other Things…

I am endlessly curious and love to learn, so my training is always ongoing. I delight in the mysterious and unknown and in reading, writing, talking, listening, experiencing, falling down, standing back up, living, loving, and being present to it all. Continuing to grow and evolve myself is the best way I know to support others on their paths to deeper self-knowledge and growth.

If you would like to work with me, please click here. I am happy to consult with people who think we may be a good fit.

Licenses + Credentials:

New York State License: #021169

Texas State License: #39474

California State License:  #28758

PsyPact APIT License: #14511