Ellen has been in private practice as a psychotherapist in Palm Springs, California since 1983, and before that she worked as a music therapist in Ohio and California. She moved to Chicago in 2003, and currently practices both in Northbrook and downtown Chicago. Educated at the University of Michigan, UCLA and Vassar College, she received advanced training at Columbia University and California State University at Fullerton.
With undergraduate degrees in both Religious Studies and Ethnomusicology she has a foundation that extends far beyond traditional psychotherapy. In keeping with the contemporary wisdom for the treatment of addiction, Ellen has spent most of her career investigating how recovery, spirituality and creative expression are integrally related. Having taught in the past at California Baptist University, the University of Redlands and the College of the Desert, Ellen has recently joined the faculties at Common Ground and the Infinity Foundation, two leading non-profit organizations in the northern Chicago suburbs that specialize in providing provocative adult education for individuals who wish to continue college-level study without formally enrolling in a university structure.
Ellen’s specialties included all phases of addiction and co-addiction, as she consulted at the Betty Ford Center and co-produced the educational video, “When Helping Hurts: A Guide for the Codependent” with the Annenberg Center at Eisenhower Hospital, Rancho Mirage. Ellen’s interests grew to include the treatment of trauma, including sexual abuse, which then dovetailed with her interest in addiction, leading her to work with eating disorders, sexual addictions, love/fantasy addiction and other “process addictions.”
Ellen has been trained in Eriksonian hypnotherapy, and she is a certified practitioner of Holographic Memory Resolution and the Lifeline Technique. Her other interests include reading, writing, hiking, independent films, Ayurvedic medicine, yoga and playing music. She currently sings with a small ensemble in Chicago, and plays the piano, percussion and guitar for fun. Maintaining a small practice in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, Ellen still commutes to the west coast every six to eight weeks.