“The child’s contact with the real world is strengthened by his periodic excursion into fantasy.”
 

Selma Fraiberg — The Magic Years

Openings

I do not have any openings at the moment.

About Me

As a member of the Western Canada Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (WCPSI) (formerly WBCPS), I maintain a private practice in downtown Vancouver BC, specialising in psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment of adult individuals and couples.

People qualify to enter training to become a psychoanalyst through both medical and non-medical routes. I am what is known as a “lay” psychoanalyst since I have come to the practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the Humanities. After graduating from McGill University with a Ph.D. (Communications), I completed 6 years of professional training to qualify as a psychoanalyst in 2002. This training was completed through the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis in Montreal and is recognized by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). My training in an IPA accredited institute enabled me to become a Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association (FIPA).

I am also a Registered Clinical Counsellor in BC (#12547).

I have been clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry, UBC since 2014 and a member of the Vancouver based Western Canada Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (WCPSI), teach in the WCPSI Extension Program which offers seminars to mental health professionals in the community and have served in a number of administrative capacities within the local and national organisations (WCPSI Vice-President 2007-2009; President 2009-2011; Treasurer 2011-2013; National Treasurer of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society (CPS) 2011-2013; Local Organizing Chair, CPS National Congress 2019; Chair WBCPS Scientific Program Committee 2017-2022; CPS Ombudsperson 2023-ongoing; and member of the WCPSI Outreach Committee which collaborates with Simon Fraser University Institute for the Humanities).

Issues of human diversity, prejudice, and “unconsciousness raising” have been central during my clinical training in Psychoanalysis and throughout my choice of post-graduate education in the interdisciplinary field of British cultural studies and Communications (subjectivity and its formative influences, emotion in reading theory, semiotics, discourse analysis).

I enjoy bringing psychoanalytic thinking to our experience of films and popular culture.

Lectures:

◻ Vancouver, March 24, 2017. Simon Fraser University, Institute for the Humanities. Polis and Psyche Lecture Series. “Soul Murder” and Voluntary Servitude: A transgenerational trauma?”

◻ Vancouver, January 30, 2016. WCPSI Scientific Program. January 2016. “Frankenskin: When the functions of the ‘psychic skin’ go wrong.”

◻ Vancouver, February 18, 2015. Frames of Mind, Mental Health Film Series. Sponsored by the UBC Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry, in conjunction with the Pacific Cinematheque: “The Weight of Elephants” (New Zealand, Denmark, 2013), a coming of age film; adolescents and suicidality.

◻ Montreal, November 6, 2004: “Psychoanalysis & Cinema,” Outreach Program sponsored by the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Quebec English Branch, Outreach Program, in conjunction with Concordia University: “Whale Rider,” an interdisciplinary study of “Whale Rider” bringing to bear cultural anthropological and psychoanalytic perspectives to discuss the parallels between a Maori creation myth and the Christian story of sacrifice to understand cross-cultural themes of personal and social transformation.