My background is in psychology.
I'll usually spend the morning working on research tasks, or
prepping for class, or even having service meetings toward the middle of the day.
In the afternoons, I'm usually teaching, and in the evenings
I may be seeing clients or doing supervision.
I ended up
working at a children's home in Illinois, where I was the primary house parent,
and so that meant that I lived in a home with about 12 kids,
and they were ages 5 to 11 in this home.
And I was responsible for living in the home with the boys
as well as taking them to school, helping them do their homework.
The kids had access to a lot of different things in their room.
They could play in their room, all sorts of things.
And I thought, well, this really isn't what I'm used to or what I've learned
would make really effective time out procedures.
So I went to the director at the time and I said, hey, listen,
this is what's going on in my home.
And the guy said, that's great.
Love the passion, love the energy.
But if you really want to dictate kind of what happens here,
you need to be a therapist.
And I thought, all right, then I will.
So I went back to my Peterson's guide.
I went past the C's and this time found M marriage and family therapy.
And I thought, that's exactly what I need to be doing.
And that's how I got into the programs. I got into.
In my research, I'm
really looking at the way in which technology affects our daily lives.
I am looking at it in terms of the way that we have, the roles that we have
in our family lives, and how technology's affected the roles.
I'm looking at it in terms of how we establish boundaries
or whether we have any at all.
I also look at the way that technology manages our relationships for us.
How does it maintain them?
How does it help us commit to each other?
How does it create distance?
A lot of the application around technology
for my research has to do with those things.
I have been a member of AAMFT for 24 years.
I joined AAMFT in May of 1999.
AAMFT was one of the first organization that recognized my work
through a dissertation award many years ago, and since then
I've won most of the research awards at my university.
AAMFT has played a
significant role in helping me to develop my confidence
as both a clinician, as an academic, as a researcher.
They have played a significant role in advocacy for the profession,
from which I have greatly benefited, as well as my colleagues
and as well as our clients.