Adrianne's Personal Biography
Born in Texas, she spent her early years in a small agricultural community in California where her family's seed business was headquartered in the Imperial Valley. Adrianne spent summers at the family beach home near Windansea beach in La Jolla.
The quest for an expanded view of the world began in Adrianne's adolescent years firstly through the challenge of experiencing and coping with psoriasis, a non-contagious skin disease. It is a facet of life for an estimated 5-6 million Americans, and about 80 million people around the world. And it is a life-long condition.
Adrianne Ahern moved forward quickly through her education entering university at sixteen years of age, a time during which she discovered the joy of running. As she disciplined herself to her newly-forming routine of regularly jogging several miles a day around the UCLA campus, Adrianne found the stillness to more clearly see the world around her. That perspective of conscious awareness and a life led by grounded choices are the precepts that form the foundation of Adrianne Ahern's persona and her practice today.
After living in London for a year and traveling the continent, a critical and profound moment came for Adrianne as her father became seriously ill with cancer. Subsequent to his passing, she refocused on academic excellence and began to study Psychology at the University of San Francisco, where she received a Master's in Counseling Psychology (1990).
While in the Bay Area, Adrianne reacquainted with and subsequently began a lifelong relationship with Barry Grundland, a practicing psychiatrist. Married in 1991, Adrianne went on to complete a second Master's degree (1992) and a doctorate (1994) in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP).
(Judy Churchill PhD, Paul Randolph PsyD, and Dr. Adrianne Ahern)
In 1994, Adrianne and Barry moved to Southern California where she accepted a post-doctoral position at Mercy Hospital in San Diego and became licensed as a Clinical Psychologist. She spent the next six years working with Dr. Judy Churchill, her professional mentor at ScrippsHealth. During this period in San Diego, Adrianne began to seriously chase a recurring dream to engage the process of writing as she sensed there was something within her to share with others
