Research, books, and trainings shaping my understanding of trauma, chronic stress, relationships, and human connection.

Sit with me. See with me. Tell me more.

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BOOKS

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES

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Trauma extends beyond the individual. Research on emergency responder families has found elevated levels of anxiety, psychological distress, secondary traumatic stress, and other mental health challenges among their spouses and partners compared with the general population. 

Read the full article:
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269659

Sharp, et al. (2022). The mental health and wellbeing of spouses, partners and children of emergency responders: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 17(6), e0269659.

Written for all those who love a firefighter, this book quickly became one of my personal favorites—and one I frequently recommended to fellow firefighters.

This book has the ability to deepen one’s understanding of the world of firefighting from the outside looking in. Reading it as someone already living that life, I gained new insights into the culture, relationships, and invisible pressures of first responder life that no department training ever provided.

It remains one of the books that shaped how I think about first responders as partners, parents, and people.

Kirschman, E. (2004). I love a firefighter: What the family needs to know. Guilford Press.

Long before I began studying counseling, I found myself wondering what brings people together, what pulls them apart, and what helps them find each other again.

This account is an extension of that curiosity.

Some ideas are easier for me to express through images than through language; especially those that were “felt” long before they became words. That’s why, alongside my writing, this page also includes images: some original photos transformed into artworks, and others AI-generated to reflect a scene or feeling I couldn't otherwise capture: a moment, a memory, a metaphor for something I've lived through. 

The words, however, are always mine. They are shaped by training, clinical curiosity, and my own history. The images are a companion to that writing, a way of giving shape to things that are often felt long before they can be named or understood. 

Here is my invitation for all of us to slow down, to stay curious, to see a little more of ourselves, and one another.

Dime más.

ORIGINS OF MY WORK: