I am a highly dedicated mental health professional holding the credentials of PhD, DNP, RN, PMHNP-BC, CARN-AP, APHN-BC, meaning I'm a dual doctorally prepared, triple board-certified psychiatric mental health, holistic, and addiction nurse practitioner and registered nurse treating adults with over a decade of intensive professional experience. My solo private practice has been open since March 2022, and my office is located in the beautiful lake-side town of Canandaigua, NY, where I provide in-person and virtual psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatment to individuals, groups, and couples Monday-Friday residing in AK, AZ, CA, FL, NV, NY, MA, MI, OR, and WA. As an independently licensed psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I've cared for diverse individuals across many settings with nearly every struggle imaginable, but I have extensive expertise in severe childhood trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, mood disorders, psychosomatic issues, complex medical issues, grieving, intermittent psychotic states, and addiction.

My journey to becoming a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and nurse practitioner started in Arizona, where I was born and raised. At 15 years old, I started volunteering at a local hospital and assisting patients and nurses on the wards, earning over 1,000 hours of service. After shadowing doctors and running from room to room, only spending a few minutes with the person/soul before us, I knew I wanted more contact with patients and was drawn to nursing as the power of a healing presence and inspired by a caring interpersonal relationship. After high school, I entered the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at the University of Arizona (UA) College of Nursing in Tucson, AZ in 2011. During nursing school, I cared directly for residents at a long-term care dementia center, was a nursing research assistant, and volunteered in a large nursery and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) on weekends, where I helped nurses care for critically ill infants and soothe opioid-addicted neonates in the process of detox. While in nursing school, I discovered psychiatric mental health nursing was my calling while helping psychiatrically hospitalized Veterans with PTSD and mood disorders. In 2015, I graduated from UA with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a psychology minor while participating in the Honors College. After graduation, I worked as a board-certified psychiatric mental health registered nurse and supervisor in psychiatric hospitals with adults, active duty military/Veterans, and children. It was during my work across inpatient hospitals as a registered nurse that I got interested in psychoanalysis as I intuitively felt that my patients in psychotic states were trying to communicate important messages about their internal worlds to me and I needed to learn how to understand them in a deeper way and started reading the work of Carl Jung and Bertram Karon. This transition in perspective and understanding was the beginning of psychoanalysis becoming my passion.

While working full-time as a psychiatric mental health registered nurse, I continued my education at UA in their dual doctoral (DNP/PhD) nursing program. Across my studies, I have earned over $175,000 in merit awards and received the highest merit award at the University of Arizona Graduate College, The University Fellows Award. While a doctoral student, I earned a Master of Science (MSN) in Nursing (psychiatric mental health across the lifespan focus) in 2018 and had a wide variety of clinical internships (urban psychiatric emergency room, pediatric autism specialty clinic, non-profit community mental health, Spanish-speaking only clinic, rural inpatient psychiatric hospital, and affluent private practice settings) helping clients ages 2-96. After graduating with my MSN and earning independent licensure, I worked full-time as a board-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) and taught part-time in graduate and undergraduate psychiatric mental health nursing programs while finishing my doctoral studies. It is safe to say I have had (and continue to have) intense immersion in my craft and my patients benefit from this experience and dedication.

In 2022, I finished my doctoral studies, earning a Ph.D. in Nursing and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), with my dissertation on the barriers and facilitating factors contributing to therapeutic relationships in virtual care compared to in-person care. During my graduate studies, I collaborated on research projects on nursing/caregiver workforce issues and treating chronic disease through integrated mental health and/or technological approaches. Now, I have married my psychoanalytic focus and research abilities to conduct independent scholarship applying psychoanalytic and existential philosophical ideas in nursing, enhancing psychotherapy training among nurses, and addressing the interface of intrapsychic and interpersonal workplace issues affecting the nursing profession. To this end, I am in the process of co-authoring a first-of-its-kind academic book about the history, theory, and application of psychoanalysis and nursing. As of today, I have authored sixteen peer-reviewed publications and presented at national conferences over twenty-five times.

In addition to academic education, I have trained in popular short-term psychotherapies (e.g., ACT, CBT, DBT, EMDR, MBSR, & REBT), but found over time that psychoanalytic ideas and methods were the most profound ways to help people grow, heal, and change while relieving psychic suffering. This wisdom was not just clinical or observational but personally experiential as I had a 7+ year experience in my own psychoanalysis with a seasoned training psychoanalyst who has an intergenerational legacy from Selma Fraiberg, Richard Sterba, and Sigmund Freud. After living the benefit of psychoanalytic work personally and professionally, I decided to do formal training and completed psychoanalytic fellowships from 2020-2022 at the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY; affiliated with New York University) and at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center (SDPC) from 2021-2022. In 2023, I completed the one-year intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy program at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS) in New York City (NYC). In Jan. 2023, I started the two-year psychoanalytic psychotherapy program at the New York Contemporary Freudian Society (CFS), graduating in Dec. 2024. Concurrently, I completed the year-long Tavistock-inspired Infant Observation Program through the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI) in May 2024 to understand the mother-infant bond in a deeper way and how it affects patients of all ages.

In Fall 2024, I started the two-year Transference-Focused Psychotherapy program at Columbia University in the City of New York under the tutelage of Frank Yeomans, MD, PhD, to gain more expertise working with people with borderline and narcissistic personality organization. Simultaneously, I began the two year long post-foundation course with the Institute of Psychoanalysis within the British Psychoanalytical Society. Since 2021, I continuously receive 1-3x weekly clinical supervision from seasoned psychoanalysts, participate in collegial reading and peer consultation groups, and in 2024 started my multi-year journey of reading the Revised Standard Edition of Freud.

In 2023, I created and started the Finley Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Fellowship to teach other professionals about introductory, foundational psychoanalytic ideas and how to incorporate them into their practice to serve their patients. In addition to teaching, it is with gratitude that I am of service across nursing and psychoanalysis, holding various leadership roles in both psychoanalytic and nursing organizations. Of note, I founded and created the Advanced Practice in Nursing Committee at the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) and am the current chair. At APsA, I am also a member of the following committees: Continuing Education, Membership, and Psychotherapy Education. In March 2024, I was invited to join the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) as a Partner Alliance Liaison to advocate for increased accessibility to depth psychotherapy for Americans. As part of local community outreach, I have collected and organized over 5,000 psychoanalytic texts and created the Western New York Psychoanalytic Library, which will open in Summer 2025, and currently facilitate the Western New York Psychoanalytic regional study group affiliated with APsA (please reach out if you’d like to join our study group).

In my personal life, I'm devoted to contemplative, peaceful living, which, for me, is best done when immersed in nature. Respectively, the place I call home is a solar-powered homestead in the forest where I care for animals, gardens, and an orchard. Beyond tending to the land, I enjoy time with loved ones, being a community board member, cooking, baking, reading, writing, walking, yoga, wild food foraging, listening to music and dancing, visiting museums, appreciating visual art, watching independent films, and partaking in sauna culture.