Teresa has been offering grief support services for people who have lost their animals since 1986, and began her professional animal communication work in 1991, though she has talked with animals since her childhood. Today she maintains an active animal communication practice, teaching schedule, and is writing a series of books on our relationship with animals, in addition to her audio book on grief and other educational CDs currently available. She has worked with thousands of clients in her practice and classes from the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
Her traditional education includes a master's degree in counseling from Villanova University, and an undergraduate degree in psychology and criminal justice from Alvernia College. She graduated with honors and earned both degrees while working full time. She has also completed post graduate work in counseling and organizational development at Columbia University, Wharton, and with Carl Rogers at the University of Nottingham, England. She has also completed the Clinical Training Program in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the National Center for PTSD, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, and has studied at the Grief Recovery Institute. She is a member of the Association of Death Education and Counseling and has presented at their international conference. Her healing arts education includes animal communication with Jeri Ryan, flower essence training at FES, Desert Alchemy and Perelandra, energy healing training in Reiki, and Therapeutic Touch and psychic studies with Evelyn Isadore. The animals, however, are her constant teachers.
Prior to her work with animals and the people who love them, she worked for ten years as training and organization development manager for RCA in New York City and New Jersey. Before her corporate career, immediately following the completion of her undergraduate degree in 1976, she worked as a counselor then a group home manager with adolescents for the Juvenile Justice Center in Philadelphia.
Her entry into the grief recovery and animal welfare fields began when she lost her first cat in 1985. Unable to come to terms with her grief, she sought therapy and began a rigorous review of the grief literature and grief workshops. Over time, these sources helped her heal and understand the grief recovery process. This motivated her to design and offer various grief workshops and to publish the audio book Legacies of Love to help others through this disenfranchised loss. Since then, Teresa has worked with thousands of grieving humans, individually, in workshops, and in bereavement support groups. This included a year's work at a hospice where she led support groups and conducted competency analysis research which resulted in the creation of the Grief Support Skills Profile. Teresa is passionately concerned about the U.S. pet overpopulation epidemic, the trauma this creates for the animals, and the grief and compassion fatigue experienced by shelter and rescue employees as well. For eight years she provided compassion fatigue workshops to shelters throughout the U.S.
Teresa has been named to Who’s Who of American Women, is the recipient of the RCA President's Award and the Gwendolyn May Award for Humanitarian Work by the SPCA of Monterey County. She has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences of animal welfare organizations such as The Humane Society of the United States, American Humane Association, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. She has served on the boards of several non-profit animal welfare organizations. Her whale trip has been featured on PAX televisions network’s Animal Miracles show. Her animal communication work has been featured on the television shows Beyond with James Van Praagh, the documentary Psychic Connection: Exploring the Spiritual Link Between People and Animals, in Communicating with Animals by Art Myer, Penelope Smith's Species Link Journal, The Flower Essence Society's International Journal of Flower Essence Therapy, and various newspaper articles.
For Teresa, animals and animal issues provide core meaning, guidance, joy, and purpose in her life. She lives with her beloved cat Olivia, in Big Sur, California near the whales, harbor seals, sea otters and sea lions in the sea, and with the redwood trees, banana slugs, chipmunks, birds, bats, foxes, little snakes and angels of the forest.
She was rescued by their staff as a stray. She crossed over in 2010.
after being rescued by their staff from the roof of a home where he had been abandoned during a flood.
KK crosssed over in 2009.
