Who Am I?
With a background of 20+ years in community-based advocacy, program coordination, and counselling, I bring a breadth of experience to my work as a therapist. Important threads in my work are an attention to relationships, the social determinants of health, including relationships between socio-political contexts, material conditions, and psychological well being, and a belief in the capacity of people and relationships to promote growth and transformative change on individual and structural levels.
I’m an experienced psychotherapist working in the west end of Toronto and offer both virtual and in-person sessions. I work with adults, seniors and couples across diverse experiences and identities, including gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic and ethno-cultural backgrounds, offering both psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
I am particularly experienced working with educators, academics, artists, health and helping professionals, therapists, 2SLGBTQ+ folks, working-class people, and individuals with histories of trauma, migration, homelessness and poverty.
Areas of focus include trauma, relationships, self-esteem, grief, work-based stress and burnout, anxiety, depression, and sexuality.
Educational Background
My earliest educators have been progressive working class women, including my mother and my grandmother, who imparted to me the importance of integrity and values of freedom and responsibility. My education and personal growth have been nurtured in multi-racial, working class, 2SLGBTQ+ communities and social movements for economic, racial and environmental justice.
A love for the communities that I come from, that have nurtured my growth, an awareness of inequity and struggle, and a desire for meaningful engagement in values aligned work, including the advancement of social justice, brings me to the work that I do as a therapist.
I am anchored in community and embrace frameworks that include an attention to the interplay between the social, cultural, political, material, and psychological, including psychoanalytic, feminist and anti-racist frameworks.
I have completed 10+ years of relevant education and training including an undergraduate degree in Social Work from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Masters degree, in Counselling Psychology from the University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. I have had the opportunity to train extensively with senior clinicians in trauma-focused, emotion focused, relational and psychoanalytic approaches.
Currently, I am immersed in post-graduate studies in contemporary psychoanalysis. In this capacity I continue to study with senior psychoanalysts. My pursuit of psychoanalytic training is born out of the desire for a deep engagement in embodied theory and practice, including an attention to the philosophical, psychological, sociological, and political, anchored in the material world of day to day struggle and living.