About Me
I have been a Social Worker for over 20 years and an Expressive Arts Therapist for the past 8 years.
I have had a rich career tapestry weaving in the threads of sexual health, mental health, homelessness, domestic violence, anti-violence programs for youth, disabilities support, community work and clinical work. I learn something from everyone I work with.
I work in a trauma-informed way and I am a firm believer in healing through the arts. I look forward to hearing your story and helping you tap into your inner resilience and vitality.
I am here as a companion on your healing journey, and a witness to the deep and wild parts of your heart that long to be heard. Let's connect!
Listening to the Deepest Parts of Self through the Arts
Grief Alchemy
Rites of Passage
Trauma Healing
Grief is not so much a set of linear stages but a terrain we walk through. This terrain changes us deeply, at times scouring us out like a slow glacier and then deluging us like a voracious tidal wave. Taking the time to honour and witness our grief is key to sojourning through this landscape. The therapeutic space allows us to surrender to and build compassionate stamina for the way grief is altering us.
Expressive Arts Therapy
Expressing yourself through the arts is therapeutic! Expressive Arts Therapy harnesses the power of creativity in service of healing, health and wholeness. This way of working is "low skill / high sensitivity" meaning you do not need any artistic skill. Bringing the arts into your healing process allows you to work in a much deeper way, expanding your range of play and creating new pathways to joy.
What do you do when you go through a profound life change that has no external signifier of your transformation? In my Master's thesis, I developed a 3-stage process that entails Locating (where have I been and where am I now?), Tending (what losses am I holding space for and what seeds am I planting?), and Sensing (what is the nature of emptiness and what wants to emerge?) Come create a ritual of your own and listen in to the new Self that is being birthed.
Individual Therapy
Tired of the same old solution-focused, cognitive-based talk therapies? Let's go deeper! Of course we will still talk about solutions and thinking patterns, but working with the arts allows us to circumvent the ego's logic knots and access deeper wisdom. Get unstuck as you tap into your psyche's guiding narratives and images. Restore your inner "saluto-genesis" - your ability to create health and wholeness in the face of what you are going through.
I have been trained to work in a trauma-informed way. This means that in dealing with trauma, we go slowly and pendulate between grounding in a safe place, and bringing new insight to the wounded places. We listen for what the vulnerable Self knows and needs, integrating this into our self-care. We reframe unhelpful core beliefs and simultaneously build resilience. We do this all the while trusting the body as it holds us and releases us from the pain of the past.
Workshops
My workshops offer a mixture of creative modalities in exploration of a transpersonal theme. It sparks my joy to hold space as we co-create in the emergent now (you craft your art as I craft the flow of the experiential). As our creations crystallize and speak to us, we tap into wise and playful aspects of Self. The collective unconscious presents us with symbology to guide us on our journey. And we get to witness each other in the process. Be sure to check out my latest offerings!