Clinical Bio

I am a doctorally-prepared psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner and founder of Calming Currents Psychiatry in Hudson, WI. My career in psychiatry started with gaining experience working across inpatient medical/geriatric/adolescent/and emergency department psychiatry hospital settings. As a nurse practitioner, I have additional experience working in the outpatient setting including overseeing an intensive outpatient program, working in a treatment-resistant depression clinic managing IV ketamine/Spravato/TMS, and serving as a psychiatric consultant for complex care management.   

Now, I dedicate my time in clinical practice leading a group private practice, Calming Currents Psychiatry, based in Hudson, WI. My specialties include providing psychiatric medication management services for teenagers and adults facing a wide variety of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders. Additionally, I provide psychotherapy services and therapy intensives utilizing the Developmental Needs-Meeting Strategy, an ego-state therapy that targets core developmental and attachment wounds we can see emerge in childhood from things like emotional neglect and abuse, exposure to significant adversity, inconsistent caregivers and living environments, and not having our foundational emotional needs meet to facilitate healthy development. Individuals who experience these and other core developmental attachment wounds may go on to experience characteristics later in life like people-pleasing, avoidance of conflict, self-esteem issues, or dealing with a harsh inner critic.   

What I Really Want You to Know

I approach mental health care through a comprehensive, holistic, and trauma-led lens. I believe that the challenges that we face with mental health go so much deeper than the presenting concern that might lead someone to seek out care. With my medical background as a Registered Nurse, I take the full person including their physical health and wellbeing into account, and consider factors like sleep quality, nutrition, environmental exposures, movement, and more when evaluating a mental health complaint. Additionally, I believe that we are deeply impacted and interconnected with our environment and the people around us, and therefore cannot underscore the importance of considering context when looking at mental health. While medication management has historically been my primary focus in treating mental health conditions, I do not subscribe to the “pill for every ill” approach, and place great emphasis on working to address the various factors in someone’s life that may be negatively impacting their mental health. My practice is grounded in trauma-informed care and I believe that the experiences we have, especially in childhood and our critical developmental periods, play a big role in shaping how we see ourselves, the world around us, and how we experience our emotions. I enjoy partnering with individuals who are motivated for growth to go deeper than surface level and work on healing mental health challenges at the root cause.  

How I Weave Trauma Model Therapy Into My Practice

Principles of Trauma Model Therapy are woven deeply into the fabric of the foundations of my practice philosophy. I recognize that the initial presenting problem is rarely the true root of the issue driving symptoms and work with individuals to challenge them to go deeper than surface level so together we can work to facilitate healing core emotional wounds. The TMT model also helps to destigmatize what other mental health clinicians may see as “problematic behaviors” where instead, I view these behaviors as adaptations for survival. For example, at one point in someone’s life, they may have learned that it’s safer to keep people at arm’s length to prevent themself from getting hurt, but now they have a difficult time letting people in and therefore struggle with social isolation. Using the TMT framework, I also work to empower individuals who previously experienced situations in which they experienced helplessness to re-establish their autonomy and take control over their present situation to live a life more in line with their core values and beliefs.