Welcome, my name is Kristen (she/her), and I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
I bring a wealth of lived and professional wisdom and experience to my marriage and family therapy practice.
I have lived, worked and raised my family in the Santa Cruz Mountains since 1991. This is my home.
I feel so grateful to be a part of this exceptional community of hearty, kind souls.
Being a psychotherapist is a natural progression of a life of service.
A lifelong dream fulfilled, I became a credentialed teacher in 1997 and opened one of the first nature based charter schools in California for K-5 grade right on the edge of Fall Creek State Park, called Fall Creek School.
I learned so much in those early days of parenting and teaching that serve me to this very day.
Beginning in 2012, I started to teach junior high and high school Environmental Science.
Born of a loving request from my student’s parents, I opened a private parenting consultation and mentoring business, visiting homes, sitting in living rooms, listening and learning.
All of you is welcome here.
It was my absolute delight to offer watershed ecology based summer camps to the children of Santa Cruz through my programs “Walk Through the Watershed” and “Riverwalkers” .
Additionally, I served the of young people of our community aged 12 to 20 as a mentor through my non profit organization “The Artemis Project” offering camps, after school programs and 1:1 coaching.
Along the way, I also studied and taught permaculture design and gardening both in partnerships with local schools and privately working with UCSC Farm and Garden, Happy Valley and San Lorenzo Valley Schools through my non profit Zone Zero. I had endless fun designing gardens and water catchment systems for dozens of private properties.
Every endeavor in service to the children and the planet, to a more healthy and harmonious world. Every project informing my work as a therapist now that I can draw on for your benefit.
I studied and taught Social and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to schools, students, teacher trainings and parents with CASEL (The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning).
I studied Nonviolent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg and NVC Santa Cruz in 2000. NVC and EQ are centered in my therapeutic work.
In my free time now you will find me in my garden, out and about with my dogs, or on a hike in one of our beautiful state parks. My pleasures are few but potent: being a righteously outraged woman of 58, subverting the dominant paradigm the best I can, dancing, reading, creating art and simultaneously thoroughly enjoying this season of life with more grace, humor and wisdom.
I am here for all of it.
I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to grow and challenge myself in meaningful ways every day as a therapist, so thank you for making me a better human and therapist every time we meet, too.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to serving you.
Additional Training includes:
Advanced Continuing Education and Consultation Group: Couples & Sex Therapy: Rouse Academy, San Francisco, CA
Professional Clinical Counseling certificate Tuoro University
Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP) I.T.T.I.,
Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma NICAMB
“Why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking out into the shining world?”
Mary Oliver