Ayelet Amittay
Bio
Ayelet Amittay is a poet and a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Her private practice, Wild Geese Mental Health, focuses on providing integrated medication management for clients who have experienced trauma or loss.
Ayelet holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and an MSN from the Yale School of Nursing. She is interested in the ways that trauma and creative writing dovetail with one another.
Ayelet has worked in settings that include integrated primary care, community mental health, and in-home intensive child and adolescent services. She is currently training to become a Parenting by Connection instructor.
The Quote
Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver
What Led to the Specialization of Trauma?
Ayelet begins with a poem and then shares what it was like growing up with a father with psychotic symptoms and how that impacted her.
A Crucial Early Mistake
Ayelet talks about a specific time during her training when she was providing therapy as well as medication management and what she did when she was confronted with creating a behavioral plan for a young client.
Ayelet’s Why
There’s the why that brings us to the work and the why that keeps us going. Overall, my why has been thinking about prevention. And then, over time, I realized that that wasn’t early enough and that I needed to speak with parents even before they had children.
Ayelet’s Advice
- Listen to and trust your gut when you’re working with clients.
- Listen to clients’ repetition and omission. Those are places where language is breaking down in some way.
Ayelet’s Go-To Books
- Parenting from the Inside Out 10th Anniversary edition: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, Daniel J. Siegel MD, Mary Hartzell
- In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Gabor Mate
Interview Links
- Wild Geese Mental Health
- Ayelet’s email: [email protected]