Psychotherapy/Counselling

Therapy is the discovery of a new relationship with yourself, in relationship with the therapist. One of the most important aspects in this process is whether the therapist is a good fit for you. It is difficult to know whether this is the case in one session, let alone a 15 minute phone conversation, or a paragraph on a website’s About page. However, one must always start somewhere, so here I go:

As a Social worker and a psychotherapist, I have worked in a variety of settings, with people from diverse backgrounds. My career has spanned decades, and has occurred in many places including: Vancouver’s DTES, small communities and Reserves in northern BC, treatment centres, second stage housing, non-profits, health care organizations and Eastern Africa.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology and Criminology with a minor in Indigenous Studies. I studied human behaviour from a social, cognitive, neuroscience and developmental perspective. I chose to study Social Work in my graduate degree because I had already been working for over a decade and had witnessed that many of the people I saw were suffering social problems as much as individual problems. I recognized how the systems we grow up in shape us, impact our experience with ourselves, the decisions we make and even the relationship we have with our own bodies. And that neither harm nor healing occurs in isolation.

I have supplemented my University studies with various trainings including: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy), Emotion Focused Therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Narrative Therapy and Hypnotherapy. While these trainings have strengthened my understanding of tools that can help people heal, my style and voice as a therapist is informed by traditional philosophers and psychoanalysts that speak of how we must understand those parts of ourselves that have been hidden and silenced. How our unconscious mind can be working against our conscious mind, and that we must listen closely to see what unfolds within the therapy hour.

I have witnessed time again how creating a safe space in the therapeutic relationship can allow painful thoughts, feelings and memories to be spoken and felt; creating space for change and growth to occur.