Overview
I teach counseling for the same reasons I counsel: to create and leverage agency. I take responsibility for fostering action in learners to become empowered in their education. I aim to generate democratic learning communities, where people consciously come together to examine, re-think, and reformulate goals, understandings, dispositions, and practices. Conflict, disagreement, and struggle are inherent to this process; but so too are consensus, enjoyment and collaboration. There are concrete skills to be learned, but a respect for mutual differences and life experiences in this case is a requirement for each course. A commitment to individual freedom and social justice underlies the efforts of democratic learning communities, as well as the products and outcomes that they yield. My responsibility is not only to students but to the future communities they will serve. With this in mind, I try to encourage students to explore cultural differences and become more comfortable having difficult conversations surrounding systems of power, privilege, and oppression.
My scholarship supports both my clinical and research interests: sexuality, identity, interpersonal conflict, transformative learning, qualitative research, Judaism and public trauma narratives.
Please email me if you have questions or would like more information about me.