about me

My curiosity has always led me to question how we all live, from the inside out. The very creative and adaptive ways we learn to survive has fascinated and inspired me from my very early beginnings. My love of nature, my need for beauty, and my fascination with our inner lives have led me towards working with people, making art and spending time with animals and in the natural world. These are the landscapes of my life.

After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from McGill University in 1991, I worked for many years in Toronto’s group homes, halfway houses and supportive housing programs with people wrestling with mental illness, poverty, discrimination, marginalization, racism, profound histories of abuse and trauma, longstanding addiction, and chronic illnesses specifically HIV/AIDS.

My years of building trust and connection in these worlds moved me towards the relational world of therapy where the distilled therapeutic relationship can nurture growth and change. I understand how structural violence, economic pressures, stigma, racism and discrimination actively and profoundly affect mental health and choke opportunities. I carry this knowledge with me both personally and professionally. Intergenerational trauma and the complexity of addressing this within the indigenous community is a weave within my own history.

I pursued a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology from OISE/University of Toronto (1998), and my learning has continued both practically and academically over the years with workshops, courses and various trainings in: trauma treatment models, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples,  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) among other therapy modalities. All of these different approaches have found their way into my  psychodynamic, client-centered and at the heart, relational practice of therapy.

In my life I  still feel drawn by our shared human courage, creativity and resilience in the face of terrible terrifying struggles. I remain humbled and honoured by the trust people place in sharing their innermost selves with me as we work together to create change within the walls of therapy which then get carried out into the world.