About Me
Hi, I’m Susan.
I help mid and late career professional women change the ways they relate to themselves and others so they can free up energy to better live out of their values at work and home.
The clinic at Mansion Hill
Why choose to work with me?
Every one of us has emotional and psychological dents and dings in our fenders from coping with stress, losses, disappointments, fears and at times overwhelming challenges while trying to live a satisfying and meaningful life. But you’re not broken, even if you’re sometimes convinced you are. We create a place together in therapy where you learn a different way to relate to yourself so you can act out of your values instead of just trying to avoid difficult thoughts and feelings. You can have a more alive life instead of acting out of old habits and patterns.
I integrate over 30 years of clinical experience with your wisdom and curiosity about your own life to come up with the best way to work together on your personal goals and priorities. I know firsthand how much effort, energy and vulnerability it takes to be in the unsettling messy parts of therapy. I take your struggles to heart, respecting the choices you have made as you balance competing desires, demands and needs.
My sessions are informed by my own mindfulness and body-based practices, which I include in our work as they seem to fit for you.
“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”
— George Eliot
My Story
I am a born and bred Midwesterner, a long time Madisonian, a feminist and member of the LGBTQ+ community.
I felt things deeply all through my growing up and have always been curious about what makes humans feel, think and act the ways we do. Studying psychotherapy and practices like meditation was an obvious choice of where to focus professionally.
When I’m not doing therapy, you’re likely to find me wandering in the woods, picking up just one more rock, biking, taking photographs, or enjoying time eating good food, laughing and talking smart with my sweetheart and friends.
The Formal Professional Details
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the State of Wisconsin (License #2458-123 ). I earned my Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of Iowa, and Masters degrees in Counseling Psychology and Social Work from the University of Wisconsin.
Prior to private practice I provided emergency services for survivors of sexual assault and of interpersonal violence. Most of my agency career was spent working with veterans with PTSD from their combat experiences or sexual trauma. My leadership roles there included supervising Social Work student interns and staff Social Workers working towards their licensure, leading the Women’s Stress Disorder Treatment Team, co-leading the Women’s Mental Health Clinic, and implementing Evidence Based Psychotherapy in the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic I co-taught Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and provided community trainings for providers working with sexual assault survivors and veterans.
I completed yearlong clinically supervised training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). I also have completed trainings in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS “parts work”), the treatment of Anxiety Disorders, Compassion Fatigue, and multiple trainings in somatic interventions for trauma treatment.
