Story Remedy combines my love of reading with my training in spiritual care (clinical pastoral education). Poetry therapy (bibliotherapy), a healing modality that has been used since World War I, is experiencing a rebirth. People have turned to literature in times of moral, spiritual, and physical crisis throughout history. The healing power of words and the use of reading and writing as therapeutic tools have given people strength when they are facing difficult circumstances. Bibliotherapy can deepen and intensify our ability to find some clarity in the search for meaning in our lives.
My group workshops and individual sessions draw on outside texts as well as on clients' own writing — journaling, reflections, and creative writing. Alongside my curiosity about the intentional act of reading, I focus on how the act of writing can be its own meditative and mindfulness practice.
I am a certified poetry therapy facilitator (CAPF) through the International Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy and received a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. I have an MA in Literature from the University of Colorado and received my BA in English from Barnard College. I completed two units of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) as an intern at Boulder Community Hospital and Jewish Family Service, where I witnessed the spiritual healing power of words and learned how to share that with others.
I work in private sessions and conduct group workshops. Most recently, I have worked at a local vets' center where I offered expressive writing workshops including ones on moral injury. I also led a weekly poetry therapy group for patients in a hospital psychiatric unit (with staff supervision). I worked for five years at a women's prison, where I focused on an expansive "What's Your Story?" workshop that led to some of the women writing memoirs.
I worked for many years as the director and owner of a foster care agency, where I designed a bibliotherapy program for parents and children.