I take a collaborative, insight-driven, practical approach to therapy. While my expertise provides valuable tools and insights, therapy is a partnership—we work together to find what truly resonates and drives lasting change for you.

That means I won’t just sit back and listen—I’ll work with you to make sense of what’s happening, provide guidance, ask questions that help you overcome blind spots, and offer clear, useful feedback.

Sessions are structured enough to keep us on track, but flexible enough to focus on what matters most to you. When we explore tools or strategies, we adapt them to what actually works in your life rather than using a prescriptive approach.

This therapeutic style tends to be well-suited for women who want more than just a place to vent—they want to make changes that will foster confidence in their decisions, create stronger boundaries for themselves, and a restore a sense of control in their lives.

My training and experience reflect a commitment to rigorous, evidence-based practice grounded in genuine understanding of what brings people to therapy.

I earned my PhD in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Community Psychology from DePaul University in Chicago, IL (go Cubs!). My clinical training took me through academic medical centers, residential treatment facilities, and community mental health settings, working with diverse populations facing a range of challenges from trauma and addiction to anxiety and loss. After completing my doctorate, I worked for several years in the VA system, providing clinical services and contributing to program development and quality improvement efforts.

This range of experience taught me to think comprehensively. I'm not looking for one neat explanation for why you're struggling. I'm curious about how your personal experiences connect with your relationships, your work, your background, your current circumstances. Understanding how those layers interact helps us figure out what's actually keeping you stuck and how to move forward.

The journey to building VastMind Wellness has been anything but linear—every twist and turn informed the vision behind this practice. Picture it: El Paso, 1990s (not Sicily, 1943, but Golden Girls fans, you get it). I was a nerdy, curious kid who loved figuring things out, making people laugh (hello, theater kid), and debating for sport. What I wasn't, apparently, was someone who'd land on the right career on the first try.

I knew I wanted to help people solve problems, so I did what made sense at the time — biology degree, eye on medicine, then a stint at a law firm to test the legal waters. Neither fit. What changed everything was a volunteer shift at a crisis hotline. Something clicked. I wasn't just interested in people's problems; I wanted to understand the whole picture — what shapes us, what keeps us stuck, and what actually moves us forward. That led me to DePaul University's clinical psychology PhD program in Chicago, which paired hard science with a genuine commitment to equity and inclusion. (Worth noting: as of 2019, racial and ethnic minority psychologists still represented only 17% of the U.S. psychologist workforce. That number has moved — but not nearly enough.)

I spent the years after my doctorate working in agencies. That breadth taught me to think in systems, not just symptoms. But over time, the constraints of agency work — rigid protocols, unsustainable caseloads, and limited room to actually do the work well — made the gap between what I could offer and what the structure allowed increasingly hard to ignore.

The clearer signal was the women I kept working with and seeing around me. High-achieving, deeply capable women who were exhausted, doubting themselves, and mostly trying to hold it together without asking for help. Women who'd gotten very good at functioning while struggling. I knew the kind of practice that could actually serve them — one with room for nuance, real collaboration, and a level of care that institutional settings rarely allow.

That's what VastMind Wellness, PLLC is. Rigorous, personalized therapy with space to go beyond the surface — because that's where the real work is.