I lived life backwards in a way - starting college after my children finished high school and were settled in their various paths of life.
 
My BA (Bachelor’s degree) major is Psychology was an easy choice because I live to understand how people live and become what they do or do not want to be.  It took me a year longer to get this degree because I detoured into a 12 month residential program to train for an alcohol/drug counselor certificate. This line of study directed me to have a minor in Sociology.

During this year of training, I spent 40 hours each week on the 30 day treatment unit, on the 60-90 day treatment unit, in the one week family program unit, and  in the unit that held those in late stage alcoholism. These assignments, along with the classes I attended, gave me an enormous overview of the symptoms and behavior of addiction from the early stages through the late stages of the illness.

An MS (Master’s degree) in Community Education (similar in nature to a master’s degree in counseling psychology) came next. In this program I used every opportunity of projects or assignments to study sexual abuse, victims’ issues, perpetrators’ issues, sexual addiction and rape. It followed naturally for me to take a four-month internship in a state hospital treatment center for convicted and incarcerated sexual abusers. It was interesting to note that inmates appeared and sounded just like anyone else one might meet until they were in group to address the problem.

My goal was to study at an accredited doctoral program for marriage and family therapy, which I found embedded in the Sociology Department at the University of Southern California, where I  earned my Ph.D. For my dissertation, I chose to interview and write about 55 persons who had been divorced 3 or more times, because I wanted to know more about this phenomenon. My research showed the split between what the general population believed, ie, the multiply divorced are rather frivolous about marriage, taking it rather lightly. However, one of several facts I learned was that they took marriage very seriously.  

In order to support myself through the dissertation’s research and writing phase, I started employment as a family mediator/child custody evaluator, working with separated parents who need a custody visitation plan for their children. During this passage in their lives, people are often angry and even violent. Annual domestic violence education was mandatory for the 14 years I worked with separating parents.

Currently, I see clients in my private practice with a wide variety of issues. In addition to the alcohol/drug addiction, sexual issues, divorce, anger, domestic violence issues alluded to above, I see clients who struggle with  issues as diverse as severely depression, high anxiety, difficulty adjusting to a relationship breakup or the end of employment, or who suffer from dissociation.