ABOUT ME

I have practised as a psychologist since 1980 and am registered with the College of Psychologists of BC (#839).

For over 25 years I worked with children and families with special needs and significant behavioural challenges. For much of that time I was co-director of a small, social services company. My work involved liaising with government and non profit organizations, providing clinical supervision and direction to the consultant team and developing and presenting training workshops and psycho-educational groups.

Since 2000, I have been in private practice working with individuals and couples, families, and kids from toddlers to teens.

Professional Development

My clinical work is informed by my professional training and studies over the years.

I have trained in Bowenian family systems theory and family of origin work with Pacific Coast Family Therapy Training Association. This training ingrained in me the necessity of looking for the broader context even when working with only one individual. Each of us sits in widening circles of relationships: the family we grew up in, the families we create in our adulthood, our friendships and work circles and the cultural groups of which we are a part. These broader contexts influence how we think of ourselves and how we take action in the world whether or not we are conscious of the influence.

For over 15 years, I have intensively studied body-based, developmental models of psychotherapy and trauma resolution; specifically Bodynamic Analysis developed by Lisbeth Marcher et al in Denmark; Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing work; and, most recently, Merete Holm-Brantbjerg’s Relational Trauma Therapymodel of resource-oriented skills training for regulating trauma and states of high arousal.

I have studied attunement and attachment theory and how attachment patterns are impacted by trauma and influence our styles of care-giving and care-seeking. Additionally studies in pre and perinatal psychology and in neuroscience have influenced my understanding of how our earliest experiences shape our implicit beliefs and expectations about ourselves and our place in the world: “Am I welcome?” “Is it consistent and trustworthy?” “Is it safe for body and heart?”

Personal Work

Perhaps my clinical work is most deeply shaped by the personal work that I have done over the years.

Through my own therapy, somatic work and energy work, I have sought to explore and understand the patterns of my behaviour, thought and mood that have not served me. I have found ways to change, to do it differently; not always and not in every relationship, but I have made solid changes that satisfy me. I have come to a fuller knowing and healing of some of the earliest woundings and traumatic experiences that have coloured my life.

Through all this my life-long love of landscape, of things wild and spare; of language, the pull of sound and meaning has steadied me and provided solace.