“The Earth: ‘I have groaned; I have trav- / ailed: I am weary. / I am blind with my own grief, and cannot / see.'” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Weary my hope, of ebb and flow; / Weary my pulse, of tunes of woe: / My trusting heart is weariest! / I would—I would, I were at rest!” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Praise her [Autumn], ye children of the Earth, / For her beauty’s proud array, / And love her for the generous store / That she scatters on her way.” — Horace Beriah Chamberlain (1834-1861; photographed copy of poem with permission of The Library of Congress [LOC], Washington, D.C.)

I am currently a full-time Master’s candidate at CUNY-Brooklyn College’s mental health counseling program. Moreover, I am a recent graduate of the Master’s in General Psychology program at CUNY-The City College of New York, with a concentration in the CASAC (substance use) track. My background is also in Sociology, History, Jewish Studies, and English Literature. I currently focus on concerns related to substance use, mood disorders, problems regarding multiply marginalized persons, and more.

I was a counselor at RevCore Recovery Center, located at ArchCare: Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center, where I primarily served an elderly population with substance use and co-occuring mental health problems. With respect to my work, I am passionate about advocacy, substance use, counseling, and providing patients with empathic and compassionate care. I desire to provide patients with a safe space to converse about their previous and current experiences in order to buoy possibilities of (improved) recovery both for their substance use and their co-occurring mental health problems. Hence, employment of a nonjudgmental environment is essential and is a part of my repertoire as a counselor and as a person. I hope to encourage new growth in my clients by way of motivational interviewing (MI) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT); however, it is essential to create a comfortable milieu for my clients irrespective of any particular therapeutic modalit(y/ies). As a hopeful CASAC and mental health counselor, I am also passionate about providing methods and tools to persons with substance use and other co-occurring mental health problems related to emotional and mental wellness as well as areas in which they can improve their environs. Because of previous and current experiences and because of others’ adverse experiences, counseling has become a desired objective of mine for many years and I hope to continue providing clients with the support and compassionate care that they deserve.

My research interests include advocacy, substance (mis)use, PTSD, trauma (especially upon disabled persons), psychotic disorders, mood disorders, social anxiety disorder, homelessness, sexual trauma, disability justice, transformative justice, policing, the effects of long-term bullying, the medical and mental health industrial complexes, disability/mental health stigma, and ableism and ageism in schools and in the workplace.