Dean and Professor
BA, Wheaton College, Illinois
MSW, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, California Institute for Clinical Social Work
Dr. Nelson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has been in private practice in Napa and Berkeley since 1974. She has taught seminars and led consultation groups on Self-Psychology, DSM-III, III-R, and IV, Transference and Countertransference, Crisis Intervention, and on the theory of Crying and Attachment, which she developed in her dissertation and subsequently. Dr. Nelson has served as consultant and trainer for numerous social and mental health agencies. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kano, Nigeria, for two years working in the area of child welfare and family counseling and was a community worker in East Harlem, New York City, working with adolescents and their families.
Dr. Nelson is the author of Seeing Through Tears: Crying and Attachment, published by Routledge in 2005, numerous articles on attachment-related topics, and a training manual on crisis intervention for paraprofessionals. She is currently working on a new book: What Made Freud Laugh? An Attachment Perspective on Laughter.
