As a somatic expressive arts therapist, I value:
- presence: I bring curiosity to each moment we share while dialoguing or creating art together. Just as our breath, a painting, or a movement emerges, I believe we are always in processes of growth and transformation. I value slowness, taking time to connect, and accessing wisdom through orienting to nature and our felt experience.
- relationship: I value the importance of taking time to cultivate supportive and trusting relationships. I hold space for embodied empathy, listening, and accountability. I believe a relational approach is at the heart of healing.
- healing-centred/trauma-informed care: I have walked with survivors of trauma and complex trauma throughout my career. As we work together, I will take the time you need to co-create a safe-enough space through listening, sensitivity, and offering abundant choice at all times (including the choice to say no). I believe my role is to be a collaborative and empowering ally who supports you to enact your boundaries and needs.
- embodiment: I believe fully in our embodied potential for reshaping trauma and accessing vitality and ease, especially when we compassionately give our body the space and time it needs to settle. As we explore arts-based practices together, I will support you to listen more to the wisdom of your sensory experience, believing this is abundantly important for easing trauma responses and accessing openings for safety, pleasure, and connection.
- cultural-competence: I have learned from individuals with a wide range of intersecting life experiences including newcomers, refugees, folx who use substances as a coping strategy, homeless and under-housed individuals, sex workers/professionals, survivors of incarceration, disabled folx, neurodivergent folx, and consumers/survivors of the mental health system. I have taken many formal trainings and have spent personal time learning about how our identities influence our experiences in the world. I am well-practiced in approaching those I meet with non-judgemental curiosity while setting aside my assumptions for later reflection. I believe you are the expert of your experiences and I welcome the (re)learnings we will both have in our time together.
- anti-oppression: I believe we live in a society which is traumatic, where we have embodied ways-of-surviving within the power imbalances, disconnection, and individualism inherent within colonialism and capitalism. I take seriously critical and ongoing self-reflective practices of decolonization, anti-racism, 2SLGBTQA+ positivity, harm reduction, body and sex positivity, disability justice, and fluency in the dynamics of diverse relationship and family structures (such as polyamory and relationship anarchy). As a descendant of white settlers, I am grateful to global majority/BIPOC artists, activists, healers, and land protectors for their leadership and generous teachings in this intersectional work.
In my practice I also follow the professional standards and ethical guidelines of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario as well as the Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association.
