My Pain Journey

For seven years, I lived with debilitating chronic pain that started in my neck (cervical) and eventually migrated to my lower back (sciatic). The pain was severe enough that a neurologist issued me a permanent disability placard. I saw countless specialists, underwent epidurals, Botox injections to paralyze muscles, and was recommended for surgery on a herniated disc. I did extensive physical therapy. I even had to bring a seat cushion to class during graduate school to get through lectures. Conventional medicine had failed me completely. Then, in my fourth year of grad school, I discovered Dr. John Sarno’s work. Within months, all of my pain was gone. When occasional symptoms have returned, I handle them the same way — and they resolve quickly. This is what I help my clients master.

Understanding Your Pain

The pain you’re feeling is absolutely real. It’s happening in your body, right where you feel it. When I say your pain might have a different substrate than you think, I’m NOT saying it’s ‘all in your head’ or that you’re imagining it. Your nervous system is genuinely creating physical sensations — real pain, real tension, real burning, real aching.

What we’re questioning isn’t whether your pain is real. It’s why your nervous system is creating it in the first place.

Your body is intelligent. Pain serves a purpose — it protects you, it gets your attention, it communicates that something needs care. The question is: what is your nervous system actually trying to tell you?

Education & Credentials

My formal education — bachelor’s degrees in both psychology and philosophy from the University of Florida, where I graduated with honors, plus my masters and doctoral (PsyD) degrees from Nova Southeastern University — gave me the clinical framework and research foundation. But my real education came from my own nervous system.

I spent years trying to solve my pain through the conventional medical model. When that failed, I had to learn a completely different way of thinking about what was happening in my body. That’s when I discovered Dr. John Sarno’s work and understood the mind-body connection that medicine had overlooked.

Now, as a licensed psychologist specializing in mind-body therapy, I combine my clinical training with the lived understanding that only comes from walking this path yourself. I’ve helped countless clients heal chronic pain using the same principles that healed me — not because they’re trendy or alternative, but because they work.