She has provided individual, group and family therapy for adolescent addicts and their parents at Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek, and for adult addicts and their families at Kaiser in Oakland, Calif. She began her teaching career in one of Philadelphia’s elementary schools at age 20, herself a young adult. Seeing first-hand the issues her students were experiencing, Kaufman shifted her career focus to psychology in order to more effectively help children with problems that overwhelmed their abilities to be successful in school. Her enthusiasm for this population and for treating self-destructive behaviors—including self-harm or self-injury in adolescents and young adults—is just as passionate today as it was then.