How do people manage and transform difficult life experiences? A healthy therapeutic relationship can support and encourage your innate creativity and aliveness. It can nurture healing and development by building your capacity to be present to all aspects of yourself and your experience.
With this intention in mind, I have enjoyed working with adults in a number of counselling roles over the last twenty-five years. My clinical experience has also involved counselling children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families. I am currently focused on private practice with adults in the areas of Complex PTSD, shock trauma, developmental trauma, loss and grief, and disability.
I hold a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria. My graduate research focused on adjustment to trauma, disability, and the healing effects of journal writing. These interests built on my undergraduate work in Creative Writing and Psychology. I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, which is a specific approach for resolving shock trauma that supports the body’s own natural healing processes. I also completed certification in Kathy Kain’s Touch Training for Psychotherapists.
Six years ago I trained in the NeuroAffective Relational Model™, a comprehensive approach developed by Dr. Laurence Heller to resolve complex developmental trauma. For this clinical training I travelled to Los Angeles over a two-year period, and completed the additional year of advanced training. I am now a Master NARM Practitioner and regularly take part in ongoing training and consultation.
I am certified with the Canadian Counselling Association and the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors. These memberships are voluntary, and show that I have met both provincial and national standards for education, professional conduct, professional insurance, and clinical competence. I am required by my memberships to abide by a Code of Ethics and to take part in continuing education.
All persons seeking or receiving treatment in this psychotherapy practice have the right to be treated with respect and compassion regardless of race, religious or spiritual practice, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, appearance, economic status, educational level, or medical situation. This is a living policy, meaning that I actively seek to educate myself about views and experiences different than my own, and to continue to reflect on my behaviors and beliefs so as to embody non-discriminatory principles.
*Please note that my practice is currently full. I am not keeping a waitlist at this time.