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• Owner and creator of Safe Haven Counselling Inc.

• MA in Counselling Psychology from Athabasca University - 2011

• Registered Provisional Psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists

• Certified Canadian Counsellor (CCC) received through the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association

• Counselling internship completed at Calgary Counselling Centre, a well known and established counselling agency and learning centre

• Over 15 years of experience working in the social service field

• Trained in EMDR, Mindfulnesss-based Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Response Based Approach

 

My Counselling Journey:

 I began my counselling career journey about 15 years ago as I recognised my passion for helping others, understanding the goodness in people and wanting to empower others to create change in their life. 
Some of the jobs I have held include working with adolescents in group homes, doing play therapy and family therapy at a non-profit agency, doing outreach work with police through HomeFront to support families coping with family violence, facilitating group therapy for mandated men and women, and doing crisis support work for survivors of sexual assault.  I have also worked with the Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter working in Calgary high schools facilitating therapeutic groups for adolescents around healthy relationships and providing individual counselling.

I am currently married and a proud mother of two beautiful daughters.  I try my best to pay attention to the present moment because just as everyone says "they grow up so fast!". Becoming a mother has helped to infuse my counselling practice with more compassion, patience and understanding. Being a parent is hard, but rewarding work!


My Views on Travelling, Culture and Diversity:

Travelling is a huge passion of mine as I recognise culture as a powerful source in making up who we are and how we understand and view the world.
I have spent time teaching English in Turkey, owning a surf hostel in Nicaragua, spending 10 days at a Buddhist meditation centre in Thailand and back-packing through India on my own. Travelling has helped me to see that each of our differences are truly what make us beautiful and that our commonalities around being human and our spirit are what unite us.
I hope to show respect and honour towards your culture in whichever way you might define it. 
 
My Approach

I draw from a variety of therapeutic approaches tailored specifically for each client including mindfulness- oriented therapy, CBT, EMDR, Solution Focused, Client-Centred, Strength-based all while building and encouraging mind-body awareness.
Teens seem to benefit from using a variety of styles including using props to facilitate discussion for those that may feel uncomfortable at first or ending a session with a mindfulness activity to practice noticing and focus as a way to relieve stress.
 
Taking a client-centred approach to me means believing truly that you as the client are the expert on your own life and you hold the wisdom to guide yourself. I hope to have the honour of helping you unlock that inner wisdom and guiding you along your path. 

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
                  
EMDR is a well researched and popular form of psychotherapy used to treat a variety of concerning issues such as trauma, depression, anxiety, and phobias. EMDR has been proven to often be more effective in a shorter amount of time than talk therapy in treating these issues. Many clients have found relief using EMDR from problems they have been struggling with for years. Please feel free to ask me any related questions about EMDR to see if it may be a good fit for you.

Honoruing your privacy, dignity and personal choices is of utmost importance to me

Counselling Success
 
In order for counselling to be successful, your active participation is vital. Change processed in counselling can take time both in sessions and outside of sessions. However, I hope to provide you with a secure environment to help you find solutions, provide tools and help you gain insight on your life and relationships.

LGBTQ+ Clients: I believe being who you are and loving who you want is a human right. I hope to create a safe space for people of all sexual orientations and gender expressions and take a non-judgemental and sensitive approach when supporting all people.