My curiosity for the human condition is exercised through my roles as a psychotherapist, researcher, and educator. I was trained in psychotherapy at St. Stephen’s College and have practiced individual and group therapy in municipal government, non-profit, and private practice settings. I completed my PhD in Education at the University of Alberta with research interests in phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, and curriculum studies. My main area of research involves the phenomenon of mortality, specifically in how the experience of mortality relates to the nature of creativity and becoming from an analytical psychology perspective. I am a Research Director and Professor at St. Stephen’s college and also a sessional instructor at MacEwan University where I teach courses in Abnormal Psychology, Clinical Interviewing, and the Psychology of Mortality.
I am primarily informed by existential-humanistic and analytical psychology traditions. I tend to orient myself to my clients through a lens of freedom, experiential reflection, and responsibility for the creation of meaning and one’s experience of their existence. My approach also emphasizes a here-and-now, relational focus, where I assume that an exploration of the therapist∞client relationship—and how it is experienced in the therapy room—can offer deep insights into the client’s experience of themselves in their world and relationships. For this reason, I recognize that each client with whom I work requires their own unique therapeutic approach, and I strive to tend to the important nuances of each therapeutic relationship.
I further acknowledge and place central the nature of the unconscious on the human experience. As we move through life towards a natural course of individuation and wholeness, life disruptions can interfere with this spontaneous psychic process. Psychotherapy can assist with attending to such disruptions and working to integrate unconscious material into our conscious lives, supporting one in their return to the natural unfolding process of psychological development.
