I began my counselling as a Life Skills coach and coach trainer with the YWCA, and co-authored Discovering Life Skills with Women.  I was co-founder of the Toronto Centre for Psychodrama to make the extensive training available here.  I was certified at the highest level Trainer, Educator, Practitioner (TEP) by the American Board of Examiners in Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy.  I was an elected member of that Board and am a Fellow of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama.   I wrote a second book, The Action Manual: Techniques for Enlivening Group Process and Individual Counselling  and am putting the finishing touches on my latest book on Change, which explores ten different aspects of transformation and change.  I am a weaver of workshops and have travelled to Cambodia, Bangladesh, Switzerland, Israel, Turkey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Scotland and England to teach counselling.

I offer workshops for Clinical Pastoral Education units offered by CAPPE and do staff training for management teams and front line workers in shelters and adolescent group homes.

I believe that many of our personal difficulties are reflections of societal pressures and themes, and so I use sociodrama to uncover the dynamics of cultural situations, such as residential school issues for First Nations and issues of violence against women. I work with organizations in crisis to discover the underlying themes and the possibilities for renewal.

I have been in independent practice for over 30 years and work with individuals and with groups. The ideal, of course, is to work with a client in both modalities to develop understanding and practice in life changing ways.  My group work includes life management workshops (Befriending our Defences,  "If Only...." Action Methods and the Seasons of Mourning)  and residential retreats for women, often for three weekends over the course of a year.  Each summer I offer a four day retreat in the lake district.

My practice is, of course, informed  by my personal life circumstances.  I am in a long term marriage with my husband, and am mother to four children.  Our eldest son died of lung cancer, taking the family into the deepest bereavement experience.  I have parented children and have seen my own parents age and die.  In my life and practice I am commitment to Still Life. That is, to find stillness within, to identify what is life-giving in life and to transform or let go of everything else.