ABOUT
I'm a clinician who started as a writer.
So now? I do bothI went to school for journalism because I wanted to ask people questions for a living.
I went back to school for therapy because I figured out that the questions I most wanted to ask weren't the kind you put to a stranger with a notepad.
I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Certified Sex Therapist, and a doctoral candidate in Clinical Sexology.
My private practice, Hearth Light Integrative Therapy, is virtual and serves clients across Illinois.
My writing lives at Vital Ground.Both halves of my work keep circling the same observation:
A remarkable number of capable, accomplished, self-aware people have built lives that look spectacular but feel hollow.
They're not necessarily depressed, and they're not necessarily anxious, either.
They're wondering where their own desire went - sexual, creative, vocational, the whole apparatus of want - and how on earth to bring that up without sounding ungrateful.
This is the work I do.
In the therapy room, I work with people who have already done the obvious things…
the books
the supplements
the apps
and need someone who can take them to the layer underneath.
I'm direct, warm, and not particularly afraid of uncomfortable territory.
My training in sex therapy informs how I think about the full range of adult aliveness, not just sexuality.
Thinkthe date nights
emotional intimacy, embodiment, pleasure, and the parts of ourselves so many of us have learned to suppress in the service of being useful or productive.
On the page, I write about the same questions through a wider lens: culture, history, anthropology, the pressures of modern life, the digital age.
I'm less interested in self-improvement than self-resoration.
I live in Evanston, Illinois, with my husband and our son Ronan.
I'm currently writing a book on sexual desire and vitality.
CREDENTIALS
Rather than trying to eliminate “bad” feelings, I focus on helping people feel more