I’m a board-certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner in Portland, Oregon, specializing in women’s mental health and integrative psychiatric care. My practice is shaped by years of working in settings where trust and real human connection were the foundation of care.

My work is also informed by two decades in hospital medicine and by my lived experience with emergency brain surgery. That experience changed how I understand unseen struggles and affirmed that a person’s reality remains true even when it is invisible to everyone else.

My Path Into Psychiatry

I began my career in healthcare, where I learned the power of being present with people at their most vulnerable. My early years in emergency medicine and later in nursing leadership taught me how healthcare systems can either support healing or stand in its way.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I witnessed the emotional toll on healthcare workers while undergoing my own emergency brain surgery and recovery. That experience deepened my belief that when someone’s inner world is unsteady, everything else can falter. It also clarified where I wanted to dedicate my work: supporting the part of health that often gets overlooked, minimized, or misunderstood.

How I Practice

I provide psychiatric care that blends clinical expertise with meaningful collaboration. We’ll explore symptoms in context rather than in isolation, and we’ll make decisions together so nothing feels rushed or imposed.

If you’ve ever been told you’re too much or feared you were broken, I want you to know that’s not true. Your symptoms aren’t character flaws. They’re signals. They’re asking for understanding, not judgment. My role is to help you tune into those signals, build steadiness, and reconnect with your own capacity to heal.

Some people benefit from medication. Others respond to somatic strategies, supplements, lifestyle support, or new ways of understanding their patterns. My approach adapts to what’s most useful for you. Healing isn’t linear, and it doesn’t require perfection. It requires patience, consistency, and the feeling that you are allowed to take up space in your own life.

In My Practice

I work with women and healthcare workers who feel anxious, disconnected, or stretched too thin and are ready to feel like themselves again. My work combines evidence-based psychiatric care with integrative approaches that create a space where healing feels possible and sustainable. Whether you’re holding everything together on the outside or quietly falling apart on the inside, this is a place where your reality is taken seriously.

I believe your lived experience is the starting point for care. My job is to listen deeply, offer perspective, and walk with you as you find steady ground again.

What Shapes Me

What shapes me most isn’t a single experience but a collection of them: the difficult chapters, the slow ordinary days, and the occasional triumphs that shape a life. They’ve made me direct, unpretentious, and deeply nonjudgmental. My patients often say they feel that from the first appointment. They can show up messy, unsure, or overwhelmed and still be met with respect.

Outside of work, I’m usually hiking a forest trail, walking the dog with an audiobook playing, or trying to grow tomatoes….again! I love cooking for the people I care about and ending the day with unhurried dinners. Those small, ordinary things help me stay grounded and remind me of the kind of calm I want to help others find.