The practice of counselling and psychotherapy is a fascinating and deeply meaningful life’s work for me. I believe it offers an effective way to create better lives for ourselves - a way to making sense of life’s challenges and a way to heal the wounds we sometimes sustain. After over 20 years of supporting people to make changes in their lives, I continue to be intensely interested in my clients’ healing journeys. I am moved by their courage and strength and I am committed to establishing strong, compassionate therapeutic relationships.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Experience
I began my connection to the counselling and therapy field as a volunteer in sexual assault centres in Winnipeg and Edmonton. After completing my education in counselling, I continued to work in the areas of sexualized violence and relationship abuse for over 16 years. The experience of parenting has been both a keen personal and professional interest of mine and led to me teaching parenting classes as well as writing my thesis on the experience of mothering for childhood sexual abuse survivors. I have facilitated groups for mothers whose children witnessed violence and took training and supervision in family therapy. For seven years, I branched out into the addictions field and provided individual, group and couples counselling. Most recently, I have trained in mindfulness meditation.
For the past five years, I have worked at an agency that provides counselling for people who are struggling with family relationship problems. Over this time I have also established my private counselling practice where I work with individual adults and couples who are facing a wide range of concerns.
Education
I have a Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology from the University of British Columbia (1995) and I have additional training in couples and family therapy, trauma, addictions and mindfulness meditation. I am committed to on-going professional development to keep my knowledge and skills current with best practices. Participating in supervision and my own psychotherapy work is another commitment I make to providing the best service I can to my clients. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the B C Association of Clinical Counsellors.