I worked as a mental health provider in a variety of settings in the HSU area, including social service administration, college counseling, part-time teaching, and as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in both private practice and in a nonprofit family service agency.

Wanting more clinical training and wanting a chance to teach more, I matriculated, at age 40, at Texas A&M university. I finished my clinical internship at Central Louisiana State Hospital and graduated in 1987 with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. I was fortunate enough to be able to return to my beloved north coast of California and worked as a staff psychologist at the HSU Counseling Center. While there I earned California licensure as a psychologist. I had been teaching on and off in the psychology department since 1977 but in 1994 began a full-time position in the department. I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2002. Besides teaching and supervising, I was the coordinator of our Davis House Clinic, a training facility for graduate students, and was the coordinator of our Master's program in counseling until January of 2005.