About Me and My Approach

Hi! I’m Christie. I am a registered social worker and psychotherapist who provides children, teens, transitional aged youth (ages 16-25) and their caregivers with compassionate, trauma-informed psychotherapy. I have a particular interest in the areas of anxiety, trauma, emotion regulation difficulties, parent-child conflict, and giftedness. Other areas of my practice include low mood, depression, self-esteem, perfectionism, relationship difficulties, self-harm and suicidality. 

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I am a queer, cisgender, settler. I strive to apply anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspectives to my work. My professional background includes various clinical positions at local hospitals, including at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) where I am part of the Outpatient Mental Health Team. I am an associate at The Child, Adolescent, and Family Centre of Ottawa (CAFCO), where I run groups (for more information please visit: https://www.cafco-ceafo.ca/groups-at-cafco-ceafo/). In addition to my clinical work, I enjoy teaching future social workers; I have been teaching with the School of Social Work at Carleton University for over ten years.​

My academic background includes a Master of Social Work degree from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology from Queen’s University. I am registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers and the Ontario Association of Social Workers.  

I offer individual psychotherapy to children and teens as well as parent coaching and group therapy. I have an eclectic and practical approach to therapy drawing on my experience and formal training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT), Dialectal Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Supportive Parenting of Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE), Brainspotting, polyvagal informed interventions, and mindfulness. I incorporate art, playfulness, and movement into my work with children and include caregivers in the therapeutic process to ensure that new learning can be applied outside of therapy sessions.

For more specific information about my approach to individual therapy, parent coaching, and group therapy, please click on the appropriate link below: 

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