About Me

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My credentials include a MASTER'S DEGREE (EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY), and a professional membership in the CANADIAN HYPNOTHERAPY ASSOCIATION.  I have been teaching at the University of Regina for several years in the following areas:  Educational Psychology 821 (a graduate class in IQ testing), Educational Psychology 329 (theories of counselling for special education and classroom management), Educational Psychology 350 (adolescent psychology from an educational perspective), Psychology 102 (introductory psychology), Psychology 204 (research methods in psychology), Psychology 311 (adolescent psychology from a cultural perspective), Psychology 310 (child psychology).
I’ll give the skinny on the particular client-centred therapies for which I’m empirically proficient. When I say proficient, I’m expressing that I’ve delivered each of these therapies in both academic and professional practice.  Here is a dance-card (pun intended) description for each:
  • Reality Therapy (RT) was my first academic study and it served me well.  RT was my confidence ticket into guidance, my confidence ticket into private practice, and my confidence ticket to complete a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology.  During my past and present years as a professional high school guidance counsellor with Regina Public Schools, RT has always been my go-to model.  (Reality Therapy and Choice Theory are from the same hand-books written by William Glasser.)
  Counsellor guidelines: Who are you? What do you want? What are you been doing about it? Is doing what you’re doing working for you?  (Of course it is not … because if it were working … YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE.)
  •  Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) was my first pragmatic system when I did contract work.  One agency for which I did contract work, Catholic Family Services, insisted that I follow this model.
SFBT is characterized by the rather hypnotic Miracle Question (MQ).  You wake up one morning and YOUR PROBLEM IS GONE … How would you know?  Describe your imaginary problem-free day …. How would your life be if it were perfect? … And so when you wake up tomorrow morning behave exactly as if your world was perfect and everyone around you is responding according to your perfect world picture.
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is another model employed at another counselling agency, Ehrlo Counselling Services, for which I did contract work.
  CBT is a behaviour therapy purportedly combined with simultaneous reflection and introspection.
 
All of the aforementioned therapies are considered behavioural therapies, action-oriented and monitored by the therapist/counselor so to speak. Hypnotherapy, too, is action-oriented, but entirely client driven, and not necessarily monitored by the therapist.  Therapist monitoring is always dependent on following sessions.  Hypnotherapy, typically, takes fewer sessions than other therapies.
 
Hypnotherapy is now my favourite.  Hypnotherapy is a trance-like therapy of suggested imagery, that creates surreal and positive experiences to be later re-enacted by the client.
 
My professional counselling practice is based on respect, compassion, and collaboration, with an expertise in psychotherapies that include Hypnotherapy, Reality/Choice Therapy, Solution--Focused Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

To close, I am a Psychology writer and musical street busker with a guitar and harmonica, and often times a street portrait artist with a sketch pad and pencil. Check out my blog about busking with a social conscience:
http://psychologybuskingalawordswords.blogspot.com