Vancouver | Director of Clinical Training | Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.)
Teaching, learning, and scholarship in professional psychology cultivate the intellect and the heart together. Excellent psychologists are knowledgeable, skillful, and compassionate persons. I believe that solid professional formation draws upon and further develops our deepest humanness. Consistent with this, I believe that our greatest potential as agents of healing and social change is closely connected to our personal journeys of development and growth. This potential comes from diligent learning and finely developed expertise. It also comes from responsibly embracing the complexity of our own stories in our embodied and culturally and historically situated lives. Knowledge and technical expertise don’t hide our vulnerabilities and weaknesses. In fact, I believe that sometimes our greatest strengths are located within our vulnerabilities.
My view of education is that it is essentially transformational rather than transactional. In professional training, I believe in taking a strong developmental approach to learning and skill development, where students are both supported and challenged. I collaborate with students to cultivate a community of learning where each person contributes dynamically in an active exchange of ideas and experience. In my classrooms, I invite students to diligently pursue knowledge and skills acquisition, while also seeking deeper understandings about themselves, and supporting one another’s growth and learning. I draw on a variety of teaching modalities including didactic instruction, experiential learning, seminar-style dialogue, and skills practice.
As the Director of Clinical Training, my aim is to be a supportive resource for everything related to our Psy.D. students’ clinical experiences, from preparing for their first assessment practicum placement to the final stretches of their predoctoral internships. Our scholar-practitioner training model emphasizes competency-based learning with the aim of shaping a new generation of skilled, compassionate, and socially responsible psychologists who are engaged in their communities of practice and advance social justice. I believe students’ richest opportunities will come from receiving all training experiences with a teachable, curious, and growth-oriented posture in a diverse variety of placements.
In my research and research supervision, I particularly enjoy using voice-centred, phenomenological, and qualitative methods to explore topics relevant to clinical practice. Themes in my research and scholarship include spiritual and existential concerns, case-based psychotherapy process research, trauma, sexuality and embodiment, therapist development and identity, and health promotion, particularly maternal health and wellbeing. I have overlapping clinical and research interests in the conceptual and treatment approaches of Existential Analysis and Logotherapy and in Lifespan Integration Therapy.
Please click here for a link to my full CV.
Adler University in Vancouver has been, like Canada itself, born and built with an open mind. Located in the midst of one of the world’s most exciting and breathtaking cities, Adler University reflects a true Canadian spirit. It’s smart, inclusive and determined to make a world of difference. By design, our Vancouver campus echoes the Adler values and intent down every hall and in every room. It is built to live, breathe and inspire those with the passion to pursue a more just society. This is where the work gets done.
At Adler Vancouver, you’ll find multiple collaborative areas with the absolute latest technology. Learning areas and windows have literally been situated to stimulate thought. To some, that may sound odd, but these things do matter. If students are given the space, opportunity and technology to achieve their goals, they are more likely to rock the boat of conventional thought.