As a clinical psychologist at the Child Study Center, part of Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at 91��Ƭ�� Langone, I am dedicated to providing compassionate, reflective, and expert individualized care to help children and their caregivers heal from challenging life events. My professional approach is tailored to each child’s unique developmental capacities, formative experiences, and the quality of parent–child attachment. By providing a safe, understanding, trauma- and attachment-informed environment, I aim to support children and their caregivers in optimal healing from difficult life experiences.

I specialize in child trauma treatment, focusing on the youngest survivors—infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (birth to age 5). Throughout my 25-year career, I have worked with young children and their caregivers who have experienced various traumatic events, including domestic violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse, parental substance use, loss of a parent, medical illness, and child-welfare involvement. My expertise lies in understanding how these early experiences can profoundly affect the social-emotional and behavioral development of young children.

There is often a belief that young children are too little to remember or know what has happened and therefore will not be affected. In fact, young children, their caregivers, and the parent-child relationship can all be profoundly impacted by stressful experiences in ways that may set the stage for significant emotional and behavioral problems that emerge later in childhood. What drives my deep commitment to this work is my belief in the power of early treatment intervention to head off later disturbance, qualitatively changing the trajectory of children’s lives.

In addition to my clinical work, I am actively involved in teaching and supervising at 91��Ƭ�� Langone. I educate trainees and undergraduates about child trauma and supervise early childhood trauma treatment. As the project director of a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)—National Child Traumatic Stress Network grant, I oversee the screening, identification, and referral of young children living in New York City domestic violence shelters. As a nationally endorsed trainer, I also instruct clinicians throughout New York City in Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), an evidence-based trauma treatment for young children and their caregivers. My research and publications focus on the impact of parental post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attachment disturbances, the effects of violence and maltreatment on young children, and therapeutic interventions for traumatized children.