I didn't have a calling to be a therapist. I really went to Pacifica for a very specific kind of life experience, to really kind of find my path in a deeper way.

I used to be a person that wasn't able to laugh at myself easily.

I took everything really seriously and was overly sensitive about things, and I think that's rooted in perfectionism.

I knew that I was naturally good at [therapy] because I was kind of that person in my circle of people in my life.

My mother used to say, "When you can learn to laugh at yourself, a lot of healing comes from that."

I had a client who just wanted to entertain me the whole time, that is a defense against going deep, in my mind. What happens when the jokester is not allowed to deflect with humor? You then have to feel the pain, and learn that you can survive it. It makes you more resilient and stronger in the long run, and your sense of humor will always be there. Being able to see the funny is deep.

For me, psychology and art interact and overlap in so many ways. Psychology is the study of the inner life and creativity comes from the imagination and a response to the environment, as you know. So they're both very similar in that way because it's about one's inner life interacting with the environment and what comes from that.