My Approach
I practice insight-based psychotherapy, psycho-dramatic bodywork, and narrative therapy. In a therapy session, I listen carefully to your experiences. Together, we explore the connections between your current feelings, actions and thoughts, and past experiences. Insight therapy aims to help you understand more about yourself and your relationships. With deeper insight, you are better able to be the partner, parent, friend, and community-member you wish to be. Many of our personal survival and coping strategies develop very early in our lives. Maybe you have found that they are not working so well for you anymore. Being conscious of old strategies, you can adapt new ones that better suit your life, now.
Psychodramatic bodywork combines body work and psychodrama. In a safe environment, you can move through and express past and present struggles with the intention of healing. Bodywork can help you connect to old traumas that your body holds as pain, numbness, or illness. Emotions that are suppressed block our energy and our spontaneity. When we release them, they dissipate. I have witnessed over and again how the release of old hurts and emotions can free a person’s energy to connect to their authentic, vital and healthy self.
In narrative therapy, the therapist works collaboratively with you, supporting you in the process of developing a richer perspective on your life. I ask you questions to consider as you relate to the problem and other “story lines.” The motto of narrative therapy is “The person is not the problem — the problem is the problem.”
Areas of Specialization
- loss or grief
- anxiety or fears
- anger management
- trauma
- addictions
- abuse
A detailed list is available here.
Qualifications
I am committed to ongoing professional development to continually enhance my skills as a therapist. In all of my training and employment choices, I have maintained a holistic integrity: being true to my emotional, political, creative, and spiritual beliefs. It is through this journey that I strive for wholeness as a person, and as an effective therapist.
- Bachelor of Social Work, Ryerson University, 2005
- Ontario College of Social Workers, member in good standing since 2006 (#811463)
- I am a registered Therapist with First Nations and Inuit Health Canada
- I was trained in Psychodramatic Bodywork by Susan Aaron who founded the approach. I am qualified to practice and train others in this method.
- I earned a certificate in Narrative Therapy in 2011-12 at Oolagen.
- I earned a diploma from the Assaulted Women’s and Children’s Counsellor/Advocate program at George Brown College. I offer counseling and support to abuse survivors.
- Prior to working as a full-time therapist in private practice, I worked and volunteered in food-security, anti-poverty, and anti-violence organizations.
- I am currently volunteering with a hospice organization.