About

I am a family therapist working with families, couples and individuals, focusing on understanding and changing relationships and recurring patterns. I care deeply about this work – it is a rare privilege to be invited into someone’s inner world. At times, a therapist is simply a steady and supportive presence – someone you can speak to openly and without holding back. At other times, a therapist is an experienced guide, helping you make sense of what is happening within you and, if needed, find new ways of thinking, behaving and relating.

When life or relationship difficulties have driven partners apart, or when every conversation seems to end in conflict, a family therapist can often act as a neutral interpreter – helping people move closer to understanding one another.

I have been a member of the Estonian Association for Family Therapy since 2007 (professional qualification certificate no. 221200, family therapist level 7), and I follow the EAFT code of ethics.

Professional experience in family therapy and psychology

• 1998 – present private practice in family therapy
• 1998 – 1999 Tallinn Psychiatric Hospital – first-episode psychosis unit, internship
• 1999 Psychosocial Rehabilitation Centre for People with Severe Mental Illness, trainer
• 2001 – 2003 family therapist for the municipality of Raasiku
• 2017 – 2021 creator and host of the Vikerraadio programme on family life and relationships, “Peresaade”
• 2018 – 2025 columnist for “Edasi”
• 2022 – present columnist for “Eesti Naine”
• 2025 – present host of the Estonian Association for Schema Therapy podcast “Becoming Myself”

Education

• 1977 – 1988 Tallinn Secondary School No. 21
• 1988 – 1993 University of Tartu – MA in Humanities
• 1995 – 2000 School of Professional Psychology – psychological counsellor
• 1998 – 2001 training in family psychotherapy – family therapist

Providing psychological support is a field that both allows for and requires lifelong learning. Over the years, I have completed many further training courses; listing them all here would be too long. Some of the longer and especially formative ones include a Mindfulness course in 2016 and a Self-Compassion course in 2019 led by Anni Kuusik, couples schema therapy training with Eckhart Roediger in 2021, introductory training in Motivational Interviewing in 2022, and schema therapy training in 2024/2025.

Other professional experience

• 1991 – 1996 Estonian Business School, lecturer in English
• 1995 – 1996 Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, project manager

Public and community involvement

• 2006 – 2018 partner at Heateo Foundation (The Good Deed Foundation)
• 2007 – 2011 member of the parent board at Rocca al Mare School

Books

Writing has been one of the ways I make sense of the themes I encounter in my work and in life. In recent years I have written more articles and created audio programmes, but a few longer explorations have taken shape as books.

In 2015, my first book, The Art of Being a Woman, was published. It explores a woman’s inner world through archetypes. I proposed a simple framework intended to help us understand ourselves, our lives and those close to us a little more easily: how much of the girl, the lover, the homemaker or the queen lives in us, and what are their shadow sides? How can we develop these qualities within ourselves and relate to them in healthier ways? My thinking and some of my life views have developed over time, so there will be no further reprints of this book.

In 2016, Kärgpere käsiraamat (Blended Family Handbook) was published. In today’s culture of searching for happiness, many people move into a second family relationship. As a family therapist, I too often see situations where, at the insistence of one parent, the other is pushed aside of the child’s upbringing or becomes marginal in the child’s life through distance and withdrawal. As a result, the child’s sense of self and self-worth suffer. The question of what is best for a child, both practically and relationally, after a separation and in the formation of a new family, became a book shaped by real-life stories.

In 2017, I created Aasta eredad hetked. 5 aasta logiraamat. (A Year of Bright Moments) It is, in fact, a blank guided journal in which you can record the brightest moments of your current or previous year by responding to a series of prompts. At least once a year, it seems worthwhile to preserve those especially vivid moments. To note down the joys, lessons, good experiences and difficult ones from the year that has passed. Reflecting a little on the year can be deeply helpful. Along the way, you may choose the most important person in your life that year – your Person of the Year. You may also decide who deserves the title of “Ora of the Year” if someone or something has caused real frustration. And who was the newcomer of the year? Where did you travel? Do not expect your memory to recall all of this accurately three years later. The last twelve months are still likely to be clear enough. But reading a five-year-old reflection later can be fascinating – the moments of recognition are guaranteed.

The magazine “Edasi”, for which I wrote as a columnist for seven years, brought together many of my articles from across those years in the 2022 collection Miks meil paarisuhet ikka nii väga vaja on? (Why Do We Need Couple Relationships?)