The three foci of therapy, education and the arts have been important for me throughout my life. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Certified Expressive Arts Therapist, and BC Registered Play Therapist. I hold a Masters Degree in Expressive Arts Therapy and Psychology from the European Graduate School and a Graduate Certificate in Play Therapy from Concordia University in Montréal. In addition to extensive training in Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy, I have engaged in workshops and intensive weekend training courses in several of the Creative Arts Therapies (Poetry Therapy, Dance/Movement Therapy, Music-Integrated Therapy). My training in Play Therapy has its biggest influence in the following approaches: Child-Centered Play Therapy, Child-Parent Relational Therapy, Expressive Play Therapy, Sand Play Therapy, and AutPlay Therapy with additional interest, readings and workshops in Jungian, Gestalt, and Synergetic Play Therapy. In addition, I have done training with the Neufeld Institute on an attachment-based developmental approach to understanding children.
I am a certified teacher and have been working for Le Conseil Scolaire Francophone (CSF, The French School Authority of BC, S.D.#93) since 2004, where I am currently a School Counsellor at L’École Océane. My professional memberships include the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, the BC School Counsellors Association, the BC Play Therapy Association, and the Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association. I am an International Certified Child-Parent Relationship Therapist - Level 1 Associate/Parent Educator.
My formal artistic training is mainly in dance, with explorations in many other modalities including voice work, theatre, clowning, creative writing, and visual arts whenever life provides the opportunity. When I practice art, even if it is only finger painting with my children, or singing while washing dishes, I feel an energy shift, and I know that I am positively affecting my health and well-being. Many times, I have arrived to do a dance performance or gone out to a social dance exhausted by the multitude of tasks and responsibilities that we all have in a modern, high-speed society, and by the end of the event, I feel transported to a more positive frame of mind, and a more energized and alive state of being in my body. I am convinced that it is essential for us all to nourish the body-mind-spirit connection in a society that is more and more ruled by digital life and lack of physical engagement in the aesthetic and natural world.
As a young adult I participated in a Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde exchange between Tunisia and Canada. Working as a volunteer in a medical centre, living in a Tunisian family, participating in local holidays, learning the language, seeing the Gulf War develop through the lens of Arabic state television and living in a less consumer-oriented culture - everything about it had a profound impact on my worldview, my values, and the way I communicate with people.
I am a lover of languages. I feel that each of the art forms is a language, with a specific vocabulary and way of transmitting messages to other people. I have enjoyed learning the basics of many artistic “languages”, as well as world languages such as French, German, Dutch, and Arabic because I love how it allows me to communicate with a wider range of people and in different ways. My immersion into any new language has been a rich and exciting learning experience. This has made me very sympathetic to anyone learning something for the first time, be it English, painting, or dance.
Gardening is an activity that I find inherently therapeutic, and it has been of service to me in times when I feel like things are getting too much, and I need to get grounded by getting my hands in the dirt. I like to explore with my clients what their own naturally therapeutic activity might look like. I am a mother of two teens, which gives me a personal understanding of the great challenges and great joys of parenting. In the past, I have used Expressive Arts Therapy with children in psycho-education groups at Family Services. I currently have a private counselling, Expressive Art Therapy and Play Therapy-based practice in Nanaimo, BC as well as a school counsellor.
Waiting at the Doctor’s Office
Yellow on my skin
Arms, legs, stomach
Swimming in rays of sunshine
Slowly warming up to the day
And absorbing what they can.
I have a dream
If I can survive myself
And live life to the end
Fully awake
I want a veranda
And a rocking chair
And a body that can get around the garden
And up and down the stairs
And time
To sit, and look, and enjoy
Drinking in the sun
Professional Credentials and Affiliations
Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors (RCC #6443)
Certified Expressive Arts Therapist with the Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association (EXAT #304)
British Columbia Registered Play Therapist with the BC Play Therapy Association (BCRPT #T-2305)
International Certified Child-Parent Relationship Therapist: Level 1 (CPRT #A-1035)
Certified Teacher with the Teacher Regulation Branch (Certificate # L164875)
Professional Member of the BC School Counsellor’s Association (BCSCA)
Education
Masters of Arts in Expressive Arts Therapy and Psychology (European Graduate School, Switzerland)
Graduate Certificate in Child-Centred Play Therapy and Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (Concordia University, Montréal)
Certificate in Expressive Arts Therapy (International School of Interdisciplinary Studies-BC and Langara College)
Professional Development Program, Teacher Education (Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Education)
Bachelor of Arts in French (University of British Columbia)
Diplôme d’Études Universitaires Françaises (Université Jean-Moulin, France)
Guest Student & Guest Artist (European Dance Development Center, The Netherlands), full-time student/artist
Contemporary Dance Professional Training Program (Main Dance School, Vancouver), full-time student
Additional Intensive Training
Dance/Movement Therapy Intensive training courses (The Movement Arc: Dance Therapy and Somatic Education)
Music-Integrated Therapy Intensive (Seabrook Music Therapy Training)
Brain-Compatible Dance Eduction Summer Institute (The Creative Dance Center, Seattle, WA)
Intro to Orff Music Summer Intensive (BC Orff - part of Carl Orff Canada)
Numerous Expressive Play Therapy Certificates (Dr. Marie-José Dhaese at The Centre for Expressive Therapies )
Numerous Play Therapy workshops with Play Therapy specialists from Canada and the U.S.A.
Intensive Training Certificate: Making Sense of Kids (Dr. Gordon Neufeld of the Neufeld Institute)
Modern Dance Training (L’École de danse de Québec)
A Family of Caring Professionals
I grew up with a mother and grandparents, as well as a large circle of their friends who were deeply involved in psychological self-study and service to others in the healing professions. From the very beginning of my life, I experienced the helping and healing professions as a normal and valuable part of society, and yet, as a child, I had the awareness that many people stigmatized others who even thought about getting counselling help for problems they were experiencing. Now, counselling, therapy and other helping modalities have become much more available, accessible, and accepted.
My grandfather and grandmother were both Jungian Analysts, having studied and done analysis at the Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. They were founding members of the Jung Society of San Diego. My grandmother, Katie Sanford, author of The Serpent and the Cross: Healing the Split through Active Imagination, had a forty-year career as a analyst, and continued to see clients until her death at the age of 100. Katherine M. Sanford’s original oil paintings, manuscripts, lectures, personal documents and a copy of her book can be found in the Opus Archives of Pacifica Graduate Institute (Masters and Doctoral Programs in Depth Psychology, Mythology, and the Humanities). Images of her book, including 62 colour plates of paintings she produced based on her dreams, can be viewed in PDF format through The Archive for Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS).
My mother, Lynette Walker, author or Mothering, Breast Cancer and Selfhood, a psychological exploration of what contributes to wellness and illness, is a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist and Registered Clinical Counsellor practicing in Nanaimo, BC. During the 1980s, she was one of the only counsellors using sand tray therapy and play therapy with children in the Fraser Valley, and now focuses on guiding people on their personal journeys to healing and wholeness using depth psychology.
My brother Chris Walker, Canadian Certified Counsellor, is a great explorer of the outer world and the inner world, specializing in work with youth, adults and couples, as well as therapy for post-drug and alcohol users. He also has specialized training and life experience in working therapeutically with First Nations People. He maintains his private practice in Nanaimo, BC.
Heather Walker, my sister, is a teacher of the Alexander Technique, a psychosomatic approach to physical, mental, and emotional balance. Alexander Technique practitioners and their students are highly aware of the link between how we use our body and how we use our mind. As students advance in their study of self, they gain insights into patterns that they can release in the mind as well as the body. Heather teaches Alexander Technique at her studio in Nanaimo, BC, as well as giving workshops in Vancouver, Québec and in the United States.
Heike Walker, my sister-in-law, was trained as an Alexander Technique teacher in Berlin. She is also a Certified Foot Reflexologist and Bach Flower Remedy Practitioner. She notes that in her private practice, as she teaches and treats people with chronic pain or other physical symptoms, it is common for individuals to open up about emotional pain and discomfort, underlining the link between physical and mental wellbeing. She has a private practice in Nanaimo, BC.
